Katrina Alsup, who will be a junior at Baumholder High School next year, also plays for German team Spielvereinigung Rehweiler-Matzenbach, which qualified for next season’s national women’s German Cup tournament. (Rusty Bryan / S&S)
REHWEILER-MATZENBACH, Germany — The biggest game of 16-year-old Katrina Alsup’s soccer career took 120 minutes and a shootout to decide.
It just set the table for bigger games to come.
“I was really nervous the whole time,” Alsup said about her Spielvereinigung Rehweiler-Matzenbach team’s 7-5 shootout victory Saturday at this soccer complex near Baumholder.
At stake was the women’s Southwest Cup title and a berth in next season’s 64-team national German Cup tournament.
The opponent, Sport Club Siegelbach, had beaten Alsup’s team twice during the regular season. But not when it counted.
A Siegelbach penalty kick in injury time tied the score 3-3, and was followed by two scoreless overtime periods before the shootout. Alsup left the game after 110 minutes of intense concentration.
“I was so concerned with not letting my man get away from me,” said Alsup, a left midfielder on her German team and a midfielder-striker at Baumholder High School, where she will be a junior in the fall. “I knew if she got away from me, she’d score and we’d lose.”
Success in the German tournament will not be easy. The team’s first foe will be determined over the summer by a draw. Potential opponents include German first- and second-division teams composed of professional players, playing a few skill levels above Alsup’s amateur team.
Playing German Cup soccer will add even more time problems to Alsup’s already hectic schedule, but she has no intentions of giving up playing volleyball and soccer for Baumholder.
The decision comes easily, because her father, Samuel, a German teacher at Baumholder, coaches the girls soccer team. “It’s our father-daughter time,” he said.
The Alsups came to Germany two years ago from South Korea, and had the good fortune to look for housing with a well-connected local real estate agent.
“He said, ‘If your daughter’s a good player, she’ll want to play for Rehweiler,’ ” Samuel Alsup said. “We came out here the next week.”
Alsup will test her value next month at her first college camp, the University of Oregon’s Elite Camp.
After the camp, it’s back to Germany for the Cup opener and another season of honing her skills against top-notch competition that should make her even better — no matter where she plays.
