BENTONVILLE — Tayler Estrada will have her Thanksgiving delayed for a little while, but for a good reason.
The Bentonville junior was selected by US Youth Soccer to participate in its Olympic Development Program for the second straight year. She is at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where approximately 300 girls in four age groups are competing in the Thanksgiving Interregional tournament.
Estrada will play her third and final match during the five-day event Thursday morning, then she and her family will fly back home to celebrate the holiday.
“We’re getting back about 11 p.m.,” she said. “It’s OK, though. I’m kind of used to it. Because for soccer, I’m used to being away.”
The Olympic Development Program (ODP) splits the players into four age groups, then each age group is split into four regions. Estrada is one of 17 players on the 1995 Region III team, which consists of players from Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and North Carolina.
“It starts out with about 500 to 600 kids per state,” said Doug Estrada, Tayler’s father and the coach of the NWA Lightning 95 Black team. “It gets whittled down to about 18 players for each region, and Tayler will be playing with the top players in the country.”
The format is a round-robin schedule between the four regional teams. Tayler Estrada’s team earned a 3-1 victory Sunday over the 1995 Region IV team, but it dropped a 2-0 decision to the Region II team in Tuesday’s match.
PROFILE
Tayler Estrada
School: Bentonville
Class: Junior
Height: 5-7
Notable: She’s a two-time all-state and all-conference performer for Bentonville’s girls soccer team. ... Was chosen as the Arkansas girls soccer player of the year by Gatorade last season. ... Is a member of the NWA Lightning 95 Black team, which is ranked No. 1 in the state, No. 6 in Region 3 and No. 10 nationally, according to usarank.com.
She played left outside defender in Sunday’s match, then started Tuesday at right outside defender. The matches garner plenty of attention from a number of coaches nationwide.
“Typically, while they are there, they will be scouted to see who is going to play on the development team that goes to Europe,” Doug Estrada said. “Coaches will be there to scout the players for the national team, and you will see a lot of the college coaches there.
“The sidelines are usually filled with Division I and Division II coaches. They’re all recruiting at the same time, so it gets them exposed.”
Tayler Estrada earned some ODP experience in April when her Region III team was picked for a 10-day trip over Germany and France, and she said her previous experience with the program paid dividends in her preparations for this year’s event. Many of the girls on this year’s team were the same ones from last year’s group.
“It’s really fast-paced,” she said. “I really need to work on the touch and the pace that I play at, and also how I play with the other girls.”