She's The Best N.J. High School Soccer Player You've Never Heard Of, And She's From Brick

BRICK, NJ — When Leah Scarpelli was 8 years old, there was nothing she loved more than being on the field with her friends and having a soccer ball at her feet.

The 14-year-old Brick Township girl still has a soccer ball at her feet almost constantly. And this fall, when she steps on the field to play soccer for the Brick Memorial Mustangs, Leah will be back with those friends for the first time in a while.

Of course, that's after Leah spends two weeks in Florida next month, playing with her new friends as part of the United States National Under-15 girls team in the CONCACAF Championships at Disney.

Leah, a defender, was called up last August to the U.S. national U15 girls team, which will attempt to qualify for the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, according to U.S. Soccer.

"It's such an honor to be able to represent my country," Leah said Monday. "I'm so excited to play."

Her impact will be felt on the high school field quickly as well, as one of the best players in New Jersey who no one has really heard of.

Until now, that is.

"My First Best Friends"

For as long as she can remember, Leah Scarpelli has had a soccer ball at her feet.

"When we lived in Missouri, my dad coached a high school team," Leah said of her father, Craig. "He used to drag me along to all the practices."

Craig Scarpelli was an outstanding soccer player in his own right. A 1979 graduate of Brick Township High School, he played for the University of Tampa before becoming a goalkeeper for the U.S. National team in the early 1980s; that team went to the the FIFA Youth World Cup in 1981, according to a June 1981 New York Times article. Scarpelli played in goal all three games for the U.S. team in Australia, including a 1-1 tie with Qatar, the eventual runner-up to Germany, according to the FIFA website. He went on to play in the North American Soccer League and the Major Indoor Soccer League, from 1982 through 1985, according to the website NASLjerseys.com.

Leah's soccer lineage also includes her uncle, Glenn Scarpelli, who was an All-State soccer player for Brick Memorial in 1980 and 1981, helping to put the brand new high school on the New Jersey soccer map by winning NJSIAA championships those first two seasons.

Though Craig's professional career ended in the mid-1980s, his love of the game did not, and he started coaching as a volunteer at an all-girls Catholic high school in St. Louis, where he met his wife, Liz, and they began raising their three daughters. That's how Leah, the youngest of the three (her older sisters, Sarah, 22, and Hannah, 17, are not soccer players) was first exposed to the game, as she ended up going with him to practices.

"I wasn't pushing the game on her," Craig said. "I would turn around and see her on the sidelines with a ball," moving it around, mimicking the older players.

And the players loved her.

"She was like their mascot," Craig said.

In 2006, Craig said, the family moved east, back to Craig's hometown, and soon Leah was enrolled in the Bricktown Soccer Association's kiddie soccer program at Pinewood Park. Her first team was the Brick Fury.

"They were my first best friends," Leah said, and though she moved on from that team a few years later, spending a year playing with a boys team before moving to Match Fit Academy and then to Players Development Academy last year, she remains close friends with a number of those Brick Fury teammates.

Those friendships are why she wants to play high school soccer this year, she said.

"I just want to enjoy some time playing soccer with them again," Leah said.

A constant learning experience

Video highlights of Leah playing soccer, compiled by her mother, Liz, show her deftly controlling the ball. She dribbles, stops the ball, taps it to her right, then back to her left, beating a defender to rip off a wicked shot in one clip. In another, she taps a ball behind her, whirls and zips away from an opponent. A couple of slow-motion clips show shots bending in mid-air, out of the reach of goalkeepers.

She has long stood out as a player, said Billy Caruso, the Brick Memorial High School girls soccer coach, who watched Leah as a child when she participated in his summer camps.

"You could see right away that she was going to be a great player," Caruso said. "She was one of those kids who was one of the better players in camp. Not just in her age group, but one of the better players in camp overall."

Liz Scarpelli said Caruso wasn't the only one who saw potential in Leah early on.

"There was a parent who followed me to the car one day" after a soccer practice, Liz said. Leah was still very young at the time, maybe 6 or 7 years old.

"Your daughter is going to the Olympics," the woman said to Liz. Liz didn't buy into the thought completely at first, she said, but "I've kept that in the back of my mind ever since."

Leah's soccer career really began to take off in 2013, when she tried out and was selected for New Jersey Youth Soccer's Olympic Development Program in the first year she was eligible. In the three years since, it's been a steady stream of ODP selections and camps before her first call-up to the National ODP camp in January 2015 in Sanford, Florida. Then came the second call, to training camp with the national team in March 2015, one of 36 players called to camp. She was one of 24 U15 players to participate in a joint program of the U15 and U16 national teams in June 2015.

And Monday, Leah was named to the 18-player roster for the U15 National Team's participation in the youth CONCACAF Championships at Disney.

"To see it become a reality is awesome," Liz said. "It's such an exciting time."

That reality has meant spending the last year home-schooling Leah while she traveled monthly to U.S. National team training camps in California, Oregon and Florida, and to tournaments in various states with the PDA team.

Craig said the Brick Memorial school administration had offered to work with them on Leah's schooling and was very helpful, but in the end they decided homeschooling was the best solution because Leah's national team commitment was going to result in her missing so much school.

"She's grown up quite a bit through this," Liz said.

"In the beginning it was hard," Liz said, having Leah traveling around the country without either her or Craig, being gone for a week at a time.

"She was the only girl from New Jersey" on the U15 team, Liz said, so she usually was traveling alone. But going and spending a week in a hotel while Leah trained simply wasn't practical from a financial standpoint, especially because there were eight week-long training camp sessions. So they taught her what to do — how to navigate an airport, who to talk to for help.

"As time passed, she got more comfortable," Liz said. Leah made friends with her teammates on the national squad, too, and every training camp includes fun activities in addition to the focused training.

"She looks forward to it now," Liz said.

"As a 13-year old I was completely terrified," Leah said. "Now I've been so many places I definitely feel like a pro in the airport."

Her travels have taken her to Carson, California; Portland, Oregon, and to the U.S. Soccer training center in Sunrise, Florida, as well as to Oceanside, California, with PDA's U18 ECNL (Elite Clubs National League) team for the national championships in June, where Leah scored a goal as PDA reached the semifinals.

"It's so cool seeing different states. I love to travel," Leah said.

Traveling hasn't been the only learning experience, however. Leah, who has played forward for much of her soccer experience, was first called to the national team as a midfielder. But when she received the call-up to the second camp in March 2015, the roster listed her as a defender.

It surprised her, she said. But she didn't let it throw her off.

"I decided to just be open to the possibilities," Leah said, "to just continue to learn."

The result?

"I've come so far from a year ago," Leah said, adding that while she still loves being a forward, she loves the challenges of playing center back in the defense just as much.

She hopes to bring what she's learned to Brick Memorial this fall as a sophomore.

"I definitely want to make the team better, lift them up," Leah said.

"A fun time"

Caruso is looking forward to having Leah join the Mustangs on the field for the 2016 season.

"It's exciting, obviously, having this level of player," he said. "She may be the piece of the puzzle that we need."

Caruso's teams have been very successful over his 23 years as coach, winning four NJSIAA Group IV championships, as well as sectional championships and multiple Shore Conference Class A South titles. But it's been a dozen years since the Mustangs' three-year streak of Group IV titles from 2002-2004, and Caruso is hoping the addition of Leah — even though it likely will be disrupted by her commitments for the national team — will help push the Mustangs, who are returning 10 varsity starters, back to the lofty title ranks.

"You have to realize she won't be there all the time," Caruso said, "but you make it work the best that you can."

This isn't the first time he has had a player of this caliber: Christine D'Antonio was a member of the 1982 ODP National Player pool during the 1999 season, Caruso said, when Brick Memorial won its first Group IV title.

Though Leah is playing defense for the national team, Caruso said he plans to utilize her in an offensive role.

Allowing Leah to play high school soccer — known for being a very physical game — as a national-level player is a calculated risk, Craig Scarpelli said.

"There's always a risk of injury," he said. But playing with her high school friends is a one-year deal; beginning with the fall 2017 season, girls who play for development academy teams will no longer be able to play high school soccer, so that they are fully committed to the academy teams, U.S. Soccer announced earlier this year. Boys have been playing under these rules for several years now.

Liz Scarpelli said she was not in favor of the move, either, but both Craig and Liz understand their daughter's desire to be with her friends.

"High school soccer is a fun time," Caruso said, adding the academy rule "is a horrible rule."

Craig Scarpelli said he sees benefits to Leah playing for the Mustangs beyond the bonds of friendship.

"She'll have to learn to play the ball more quickly" and will learn to deal with the physical nature of the high school game, which can make her tougher to knock off the ball when she plays for the national team. Craig also believes Leah will be getting her teammates very involved instead of holding onto the ball for long periods.

She also will be making memories that can't be made elsewhere.

Eyes to the future

One thing Leah won't have to worry about this year — or for the rest of her high school career — is the college recruiting process. While many sophomore athletes are just starting to worry about where or even whether they will continue to play sports in college, Leah has settled the matter, making an oral commitment to play for Penn State, the 2015 NCAA national champion, when she graduates from Brick Memorial in 2019.

"It's definitely the most important decision I've ever made," Leah said. She had been recruited by several schools, including Rutgers, Duke and Stanford, but chose the Nittany Lions because "there was a better vibe."

"At Penn State I felt more welcomed," she said. "I definitely felt like I was part of a family."

"It was an opportunity she couldn't pass up," Liz said.

Craig said part of the draw to Penn State is Frankie Tagliaferri, the Colts Neck star who is a Penn State commit and also a member of the National U18 Girls team, he said.

"She is like a mentor to Leah," Craig said. The two girls both play for PDA, and Leah had the opportunity to play with Tagliaferri in June when Leah was asked to play up on the PDA U18 ECNL team.

"It was a great experience," Craig said.

Inspirations

Leah said that with her commitment to Penn State settled (she still has to sign a national letter of intent but will not be eligible to do that until February 2019) she can turn her attention to other things — first and foremost her soccer.

"I can focus on getting better and improving my game," Leah said. It's something she works at daily, spending time in the gym in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon or evening working on her skills with her father, who is her trainer and birthday buddy: Leah will turn 15 on Sept. 18, the day after Craig's birthday.

In addition to pushing her on the field, Leah said her father's achievements push her as well.

"He definitely inspires me," Leah said. "It makes me work harder because I want to do what he did."

Leah also draws inspiration from the most famous soccer player in the history of the Shore Conference: Christie Rampone, the recently retired captain of the U.S. Women's National Team who won the World Cup last summer.

Leah participated in Rampone's summer soccer camps for a few years, along with dozens of other young girls.

But Leah said she has had the opportunity to talk to Rampone more recently and get advice as her career has followed a path similar to that of Rampone, who was a record-setting goal-scoring forward at Point Pleasant High School and a dominant offensive presence at Monmouth University before she was called up to the U.S. National team. It was U.S. National Team coach Tony DiCicco who moved the then-shy girl from the Jersey Shore to defense, where she became one of the best defenders in the game.

"She's definitely the greatest player I've ever seen," Leah said. Rampone told her to just keep working hard and make the most of the opportunity.

For now, that means concentrating on preparing for the U15 team's participation in the CONCACAF tournament at Disney, which opens Aug. 9 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.

The tournament is a culmination for the U15 players, U.S. Soccer said in a news release about the naming of the roster. The team moves up to U17 in 2017, with the 2018 World Cup in its sights. It is participating in the CONCACAF tournament for the first time.

"“It was not easy to narrow down the roster to 18, and that’s a credit to the depth in this age group," U15 Girls' National Team head coach Mark Carr said in the news release. "Moving forward, I know that the future is very bright for all of these players who are just starting their journey in our national team programs.”

Leah said seeing the success of Mallory Pugh, the 18-year-old sensation who's taken that national team journey to the top level, and already making an impact on the U.S. Women's National Team, "tells me anything is possible."

"I love being on the ball. I love having the ball at my feet," Leah said. "I still love the game as much as I did when I was little."

"I know no matter what happens, I'm not going to give up," she said.

Leah Scarpelli works on her skills during training with the U.S. National Under-15 Girls Team. U.S. Soccer photo, used with permission