Hillsborough Soccer Star Heads To US Technical Championship

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — At three years old, a soccer star was born. Ava Fox of Hillsborough began playing the sport and before long she was a pro.

She was so good at soccer that she was selected to compete at the United States technical championship in Atlanta Georgia this week.

“It feels really good,” Ava, who is 11 now said of being selected. “It feels good to know that I am going down somewhere where there are good players like me or better than me. And it makes me feel good that I made it that far.”

This national soccer competition is the culmination of a year-long local and regional competition which looked at thousands of youth soccer players across the United States evaluating their skill and ability.

The top 200 youth soccer players who participated in these competitions will represent themselves during the week over a three-day competition.

Ava will be competing against other 11 and 12 year old girls from all over the United States. The evaluations will be conducted by some of the top soccer coaches in the world led by Rene Muelensteen who was a former first-team coach for Manchester United in England.

The winner of the age group will be invited to a variety of high level soccer identification camps within th the United States. The overall grand champion of the camp will be invited overseas to Europe to train with a professional soccer team. The top 18 overall players will be invited to form a team to play in Europe in a competitive tournament.

Ava currently plays with the Players Development Academy in Zerapath in Somerset.

“The PDA is considered by many in the soccer community as the number one girls program in the United States,” Ava’s father, Jason, said. “There have been Olympians and professional soccer players that have come out of that program.”

Ava began playing with the PDA five years ago. The program is very competitive. Ava must try out each year to be selected to compete on the team.

“I am extremely proud of Ava,” Jason said. “She has been working very hard to develop skills and abilities and to be able to represent not only Hillsborough but New Jersey, I am very proud of her.”

Ava is currently a fifth grader at Auten Road School in Hillsborough where she is considered the fastest female runner in her intermediate school in the half-mile evaluation.

Ava proved that this past Thanksgiving where she won the U12G Division for the Flemington 5K Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. She came in 23:30 for first place for U12G. There were more than 6,000 total runners.

(Photos provided)

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