By Randy Vogt, Director of Public Relations, Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association
November 6, 2015-United States Women’s National Team player Crystal Dunn, the reigning Most Valuable Player of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), demonstrated her favorite drills plus signed autographs at a special training session this past Monday night, November 2 under the lights at Comsewogue High School in Port Jefferson Station. The recipients of this practice were the Terryville Breakers, with a 2-3-2 record in the Girls-Under-14 Champion Division of the Long Island Junior Soccer League (LIJSL). The Breakers are coached by Steve Nielsen, who encouraged his players to enter the “Win a Workout With Crystal Dunn” contest run by At Peak Sports last spring.
Crystal told the Breakers that to play at the highest level, it takes “lots of discipline and commitment plus lots of work off the field. Recovery and embracing development and always willing to get better.”
Maybe a couple of the Breakers will take what they learned last Monday night and one day score international goals like Crystal, who registered her first a month ago against Haiti, which she says is her best moment ever on a soccer field.
Crystal grew up a short corner kick from the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) office in Rockville Centre, playing for the LIJSL’s Rockville Centre Power, Rockville Centre Tornadoes and Albertson Fury ‘91. She won the Hermann Award as college soccer’s best player and was selected first overall at the 2014 NWSL Draft. Crystal also developed her wonderful talent with Eastern New York’s Olympic Development Program, competing in ODP for six years, and used it as a springboard to represent the USA internationally.
Crystal explained, “I learned development at an early age playing in the Long Island Junior Soccer League, which is a really great hub for girls soccer. I always played at the highest level and I just played around so many girls committed to the sport.”
A video of the training session can be found here: https://youtu.be/0nz0nDH4x40
Her appearance was through Eastern New York’s partnership with At Peak Sports. Eastern New York is very pleased to prevent player injuries through the At Peak educational app, which Crystal endorses, that was provided to over 100,000 players, as well as their parents and coaches last spring. The app delivers strength and conditioning exercises and video workouts, specific to age, gender and sport, that are designed by medical professionals for youth athletes plus has a social platform where teammates can interact, upload photos, view sports-related video content and challenge one another in trivia contests.
About Eastern New York:
With over 100,000 youth soccer players––both boys and girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with 11 leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators. All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Special Children. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association. For more information, please log on to http://www.enysoccer.com/, which receives nearly 300,000 hits annually from the growing soccer community.
About AT PEAK:
AT PEAK is a mobile sports and fitness e-Commerce platform whose mission is to bring the best of sports medicine and athletic training to every field and every home. AT PEAK’s first product is a mobile app for injury prevention in youth sports which cause 10 million injuries/year and $30B in healthcare costs. AT PEAK works with the premiere sports medicine doctors in the country to deliver age, gender and sport specific athletic training through our app. A CDC report says that sports injuries can be reduced by 50% using the type of workouts, information and tools that AT PEAK will provide to kids, coaches and parents. Our platform tracks athlete engagement and results over time. It reports that information, as appropriate and with permission, to coaches and parents: 360o encouragement to learn, improve and perform at your best. AT PEAK was founded in 2012 by Will Metzger, who brings a background of running digital programs for healthcare and technology companies. The founding team also includes Dr. Jordan Metzl, the head of the Youth Sports Institute at the Hospital for Special Surgery; Pete Banks, a technologist with a background in online gaming & fitness; and Jennifer Haggerty, a capital markets and online technology operations executive. AT PEAK’s Board of Advisors includes sports medicine doctors, pro athletes and other prominent members of the youth and pro sports industries. www.AtPeakSports.com