The KCW Juniors U-16 and U-18 teams will play their first-ever U.S. Soccer Development Academy matches over the weekend. Both teams face Texas Rush AJ Auxerre Saturday and Texas SC DTH Sunday in the suburbs outside of Houston, Texas. Kansas City Wizards ownership group OnGoal created the Juniors program in 2007 as part of the MLS youth development initiative. Click to continue reading...

The U-18 and U-16 KCW Juniors teams are about to begin their existence in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy. To follow the Juniors this season, visit the official page at www.kcwizards.com/kcwjuniors or the Juniors blog at www.kcwjuniors.blogspot.com. Both teams kick off DA play Saturday, November 21 at Texas Rush AJ Auxerre. Click to continue reading...

The KCW Juniors U-13 and U-16 teams have qualified for the USYSA Region II finals, while the U-17 team was eliminated by the Chicago Fire Jrs squad on a 90th minute penalty kick. The U-13s play tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. CT in Yankton, South Dakota, while the U-16s kickoff at 8:30 a.m.
The U-13 team advanced past Ambassadors FC of Ohio by a 6-2 score line this morning, before the U-16s beat Westside United FC 1-0 to secure a place in the championship game. Click to continue reading...

KCW Juniors tryouts began tonight. The U-16 and U-18 U.S. Soccer Development Academy team callback lists are below. Thanks to everyone who tried out, and good luck for those participating again tomorrow!
KCW Juniors U-16
Callbacks for Friday, June 12th
Blackwell, Luke
Bernard, Matt
Bowlen, Shane
Brown, Andrew
Brown, Chris
Brown, Garrett
Bunting, Patrick
Clifton, Daniel
Conway, Tyler
DeJulio, Eric
Dempsey, Drew
Dinkel, Jace
Doe, Tarlue
Esparza, Austin
Hill, Ryan
Hunjak, Tanner
Hunjak, Tray
Hymer, Eric
Kempin, Jonathan
Knoll, Konner
Leichty, David
Mayoras, Marques
McClanahan, Bryce
Miller, Andrew
Moore, Eric
Munoz, Romeo
Opperman, Nate
Pulliam, Garrett
Quezada, Emilio
Rideout, Jordan
Romero, Bryan
Row, Nicholas
Scheck, Cody
Schrick, Derek
Sinyavskiy, Daniel
Slattery, Logan
Soe, Kim
Stewart, Clay
Throckmorton, Lucas
Tuso, Chris
Vermes, Kyle
Vigil, Billy
Walter, Taylor
Woods, Shane
Wright, Evan
KCW Juniors U-18
Callbacks for Friday, June 12th
Adams, Tom
Allen, Brandon
Baeza, E. Click to continue reading...

Last year's U-19 team at the Regional Final before winning and advancing to the National Championships.
The details on the KCW Juniors program for the 2009-2010 season are here. We will field three teams, U-18s, U-16s and U-14s. The 18s and 16s will join the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, competing in the Frontier Conference against some of the best clubs from around the midwest. Click to continue reading...

Besler in his first career start against San Jose.
Matt Besler entered the starting lineup two games ago, and the Wizards defense has yet to allow a goal. In fact, Besler has never been on the field when Kansas City has allowed a goal. He entered for the final minutes of the Colorado match and nearly registered an assist on his first-ever touch. Click to continue reading...

After last weekend's cracker off the foot of Davy Arnaud, Glenn Davis of Houston Chronicle, ESPN, HDNet and his own website's fame chatted with our favorite #22. Head over to the Sports Animal's website and click on Hour 2 from Monday, April 13.
Also, former Everton FC striker and KCW player Paul Rideout was featured on an Everton fan site's story about the future of the club. Click to continue reading...

div style="text-align: justify;"Since we've been accused of suffering from a slow news day, I decided to throw up a ton of interesting links for footie fans.br /br /-First, Curtis Kitchen gives some details on the a href="http://kc.wizards.mlsnet.com/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20090402amp;content_id=234488amp;vkey=news_kcwamp;fext=. Click to continue reading...

All five of our KCW Juniors clubs traveled to Springfield this weekend to play in the Springfield Champions Challenge. The U-15s and U-16s both won their respective age divisions, with the U-13s losing in the final game. Both the U-17s and U-18s played in a showcase division that did not record game results. Click to continue reading...

Jon Kempin started in goal for the U.S. U-17s and made excellent saves off of efforts from Davy Arnaud in the 20th and 27th minutes, but we were able to score two past him in his 45 minutes of action.
Goals
24th-Morsink put Souter through behind defense near top of the 18. Click to continue reading...

As I've referenced twice in the last couple of days, KCW Juniors U17 goalkeeper Jonathan Kempin (a former Blue Valley North student) is in Bradenton with the U.S. U-17 residency program. As I've also referenced, we play the residents tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET. Earl Edwards is the clear-cut number 1 right now for our U-17s, but Jon is in a battle with Spencer Richey of Seattle for the number 2 gig. Click to continue reading...

A little soccer-volleyball action from last year's trip to Bradenton.
Some of you may have seen this, but the U.S. Nats have retained Jack Jewsbury for their extended camp ahead of the Mexico game. As you know, several Europe-based players will probably be called in, but Jack and the other 19 guys still have the chance to impress Bob Bradley ahead of a very busy international calendar in 2009. Click to continue reading...

The KCW Juniors U-19 team that finished as runners up at the 2008 U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships after winning Kansas State Cup and Regionals.
Soccer America today put out the top 30 boys clubs in the United States, with our 2-year-old program clocking in at number 30. Only three other MLS clubs appeared ahead of our Juniors. Click to continue reading...

KCW Juniors U18 player ANDRockhurst High School star Alex Sweetin has been named to the ESPN RISE All-America first team for his season that included 26 goals and 25 assists. Sweetin was a part of the inaugural KCW Juniors U17 team that finished as the runners up in the 2007 Soccer United Marketing Cup, just weeks after the team was formed. Click to continue reading...

Last night, Blue Valley High School defeated Blue Valley West 3-2 in overtime in a first-round playoff match. Three members of the KCW Juniors scored goals, including the overtime winner from Bryan Romero. Read the Star's report on the match here. Romero, a U-16 players, was joined by fellow U-16 Tom Adams and U-18 Mohammad Ramahi. Click to continue reading...

For those of you who didn't see today's D-7 section of the KC Star, jump over to kcstar.com's version of Bob Luder's feature on some KCW Juniors players. Luder focuses on some of the kids who are making long treks (three from Iowa, one from Wichita) to practice and play each week with our Juniors.
As you know, the program has been a huge success in its year-plus of existence. Click to continue reading...

The Juniors scored first today and went into halftime 1-1 against their already-determined opponent for Sunday's U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship. Many of the Juniors reserves played in the match, and some regulars played in other positions. No word on how Solar's team was composed. In the second half, the game was pretty stagnant, with each side keeping possession for long stretches but few hard challenges from either side. Click to continue reading...

Our U-19s continued a strong run at Nationals today with a 3-1 victory over Colorado Nike Rush in a match that just wrapped up. Intern Alex will post a full recap shortly over at the KCW Juniors blog. We're now 2-0-0 and have the inside track to a place in the championship game on Sunday. Great work, once again, lads! Click to continue reading...

This week, the Community Blood Centers have partnered with us on a blood drive event at each of their nine area locations that is highlighted by appearances today from Starting 11 Girls, Dynamo and players at the CBC's central location at 4040 Main in KCMO between noon and 2:30 p.m. Anyone who registers to give blood today will receive a free commemorative T-shirt. Click to continue reading...

KCW Juniors U-18 team member Christian Duke was recently selected by Soccer American as part of their expanding coverage of youth soccer and the MLS developmental programs. Check out the piece from Joseph Addison here. Click to continue reading...

The Juniors won their first match of the U.S. Youth Soccer National Tournament this morning, coming back from two goals down with three goals in the final 15 minutes for a 3-2 final score line over Freestate United (Maryland). Great work Juniors. Wizards intern Alex Haueter is in Little Rock and will be posting a full match report and more on the KCW Juniors new blog, accessible at noon CT at www. Click to continue reading...

Alright guys, apologies for the pieces of information, but our KCW Juniors U-19 team is taking on the KCW Reserves (those not traveling to Columbus plus a couple of guest players) in a scrimmage. The Juniors will train first then scrimmage the Reserves around 10 a.m. It might start a little early, so if you're wanting to stop by, I'd get there around 9:30 a. Click to continue reading...

Now we've got all the info. Here's the release just sent:
KCW Juniors U-19 Team Defeats Scott Gallagher Soccer Club of St. Louis to Capture Region II Championship, Advance to Nationals
(June 25, 2008) – The KCW Juniors U-19 team capped a successful U.S. Youth Soccer Region II Championship run Wednesday, beating cross-state opposition from Scott Gallagher Soccer Club in St. Click to continue reading...

We have now learned our opponent for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Round of 16. The Carolina RailHawks defeated Real Maryland 1-0 last night on their home turf. Kansas City will travel to Carolina for a 6:30 p.m. CT match-up with the USL-1 side.
Midfielder Kerry Zavagnin and defender Michael Harrington will be in familiar territory, playing less than 30 miles away from the University of North Carolina, where each attended school. Click to continue reading...

Our Juniors are still undefeated at Regionals, and we'll still be getting you more details soon. We're currently 3-0-3, and all three teams have the ability to move out of the group stage with the correct results today. Go get 'em, kids!
Fun day of soccer yesterday, as the U.S. wrapped up a 9-0 aggregate victory over Barbados and Spain broke two jinxes (vs Italy in major tournaments and penalty shootouts on June 22) to advance to the semifinals of Euro '08. Click to continue reading...

Glad to get a point on the road, would have loved to put one in the net. Hartman records League-high 5th shutout of season and record 72nd of his career. Good chances early (Sealy twice) and late (Victorine's just-miss off Morsink pass, Leathers miss left from Victorine pass). Guevara scares us again (great save on that near-post blast, Kevin). Click to continue reading...

Greetings Hillcrest Road faithful. Don't forget to pose a question for Jimmy and Jack above. They will be asked tomorrow after practice and then posted here at Hillcrest Road afterward. By all accounts, practice was an intense one today and featured some post-practice "conditioning". The guys got after it. Click to continue reading...

Hello everyone, checking in with a KCW Juniors update from the weekend. These will begin coming more frequently from here on out. If you haven't seen, we've got some exciting stuff coming up. Read the release here from kcwizards.com about our expanded program this season and our joining the U.S. Soccer Development Academy program in 2009. Click to continue reading...

Isn't it a happy one? Not only did we beat D.C. United 2-0 Saturday, but the reserves captured a 4-0 victory over Drake Sunday afternoon. What some people don't yet know, is that the KCW Juniors U-16 squad put a 4-1 whooping on a team from St. Louis Soccer Club Sunday on Field 3, the new turf field at the Swope Park Training Center. Click to continue reading...

Hello Hillcrest Road readers, we're checking in today from the press box at lovely John Crain Field on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. The field is beautiful (very smooth, short surface without too much wear and tear) and the weather is excellent. (Mid-60s and slightly breezy).
The KCW Juniors U-16s and U-17s were in action today in the Metro College Showcase in the St. Click to continue reading...