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Kailynn Noon, a 2008 graduate of Meadville High School, started playing soccer when she was 5.

Since then, she has played on over a dozen youth, indoor, and travel soccer teams. Those experiences have led her to NCAA Division II Edinboro University, where she plans to play in the fall.

“Training year round has helped me focus on the fundamentals of the game,” Noon said. “The opportunities that Meadville has to play soccer year round are a great benefit for the area.”

In addition to learning the skills of the game, it was through her experiences with summer soccer programs that Noon met her future college coach, Gary Kagiavas. Kagiavas coached Noon on an Erie Admirals travel team and at a summer camp at Edinboro.

Kagiavas has been the coach of the Edinboro women’s soccer team for all of its 12 years of existence and is also the coaching director of the Erie Admirals youth and travel soccer program.

According to Kagiavas, the quality of soccer instruction and talent in the area now is some of the best he has seen in his 20 years of coaching youth soccer.

“I’ve been involved with this for a long time, and the type of player that is being developed now locally is at an incredibly high level,” Kagiavas said.

And the growth of youth programs has played an important role in increasing local interest in soccer.

“I think more than anything their involvement in soccer and their identity as a soccer player, they get at that age,” Meadville girls soccer coach Barry Anderson said. “There is almost a graduation from that into travel teams.”

The Crawford County Youth Soccer Association has just under 1,100 children between the ages of 5 and 18 participating in its leagues this summer. According to John McGlinn, a member of the CCYSA board of directors, the popularity of the program soared when it moved to its current location on Townline Road in the late 1990s.

It was through playing on a CCYSA team that Noon was first introduced to soccer.

Saturday was the first day of practice for CCYSA teams. Children playing on teams in the Conneaut Lake Area Youth Soccer program have been practicing for over a week.