Malibu's Red Devils Win Area Title

After playing three games on Saturday and three games on Sunday, the Red Devils—Malibu AYSO's Girls U-12 league champions—won the area championship in Moorpark. The final game was a 1-0 win over the Thousand Oaks A-Team.

The local squad advances to the sectional tournament, which take place in Bakersfield in February. 

The most exciting game was the semi-final match in which the Red Devils played another team from Malibu—the Blue Waves. The game was tied at 1-1 at the end of regulation. It then went to penalty kicks, with the Red Devils winning 3-1.

The Red Devil players are Fiona Delaney, Gabrielle Farrer, Crystal Graham, Sophia Helm, Athina Jourdanou, Chloe Kilroy, Phoenix Sainz, Sydney Stern, Sierra Todt, Katarina Ulich and Kiley Lumley.  

The Blue Wave players are Sarah Myers, Anais Juarez, Madison Kaiser, Naomi Peterson, Paris Richman, Dylan Shumow, Frankie Mujic, Shelby Little and Jennifer Orion.

The Red Devils were one of two Malibu squads that won an area championship on Sunday. The other was . In total, Malibu has won five area titles this year of a possible 10, including the Boys U-16 final that included two Malibu teams.

Malibu AYSO Regional Commissioner Rick Erickson credits the success to "player and coach development, and most importantly our 'can do, can succeed' Malibu attitudes confirmed by confidence and our expectation of success fostered by so many champions before."

He added, "No Region performs as well as ours, despite being one-third to one-fourth the size of our competing regions."