Crystal Lake has a new semi-pro women’s soccer team. The Force debuts Saturday: ‘Dream come true’

Laura Korus grew up in the Woodstock area and played soccer at Marian Central and many other teams.

Now she’s coming out of retirement to join the Crystal Lake Force semi-professional women’s soccer team that begins play Saturday.

“It’s been a dream come true,” Korus said.

Post-Marian, Korus went on to play at Louisiana Tech and played semi-pro soccer for the Minnesota TwinStars in 2017, but decided to hang up her professional cleats after that and play recreationally.

Then the Crystal Lake Soccer Federation, which runs the Crystal Lake Force soccer organization, launched its semi-pro team.

Korus has played before at The MAC, the athletic complex where the Crystal Lake Force will have their home games. She played for a club team, Chicago Magic, before moving over to the Crystal Lake Force’s club team in high school.

The new team’s head coach, Diego Cevallos, coached the under-23 team she played on every summer, and the team’s assistant coach, Kristian Rockall, coached her in high school. Korus was eager to play for her former coaches again.

“It’s unbelievable, to be honest,” Korus said.

Korus now lives in Union and also has high hopes for the team, which she said is a mix of more seasoned players and younger ones still in college. Korus said that will make the team strong when they come together and play.

Korus and her teammates will make their Crystal Lake Force debut at 7 p.m. Saturday, when the team plays Edgewater Castle FC at The Mac.

Players, who range in age from 17 to 37, are mostly from McHenry County, said Rockall, who’s the Crystal Lake Soccer Federation executive director. There’s about 18 players on the base roster, Rockall said.

The team is in the United Women’s Soccer League, which has two divisions, and the Force has teams in both. Players on the lower division team could get called up to the higher division team, Rockall said.

The program planned for the lower division team to be the U23 team, but recently found out unlike U23, there’s no age restrictions for the second division team, Rockall said.

The Force is the UWS’s Midwest Conference, along with Edgewater Castle, DeKalb County United, Indiana United and Rockford Raptors FC.

The league reached out in January about starting a team in Crystal Lake, Rockall said. The formal announcement welcoming the team to the league came in a Feb. 21 news release. The team started training earlier in May, Rockall said.

Cevallos, the head coach, had a big role in starting the Force organization’s high school boys and girls programs.

He’s seen generations and classes make their way through the Crystal Lake Force organization and said he has previously coached all but three players on the team. He said it was a “logical move” to take the head coach role.

“It’s an exciting time” for us in Crystal Lake, Cevallos said.

He said the team is excited about the season and has spreading the word about it. Many of the team members are fulfilling dreams or goals through playing this year.

It’s his first time coaching a semi-pro team, but Cevallos has coached at Judson University in Elgin since 2004. He coached both the men’s and women’s soccer teams until 2013, but has exclusively coached the women’s team since then.

Growing up in the soccer academy system was a good building block for his coaching career, Cevallos said. He was in the Costa Rica national team training program before playing high school soccer in Rockford, according to his Judson University bio. He played soccer at Judson from 2001 to 2003.

Crystal Lake Force’s games are mostly in the Chicago area and are on Saturday and Wednesday evenings. The home games are scheduled to be played on the stadium field at the MAC.

Rockall said the team has gotten hype within the Crystal Lake Soccer Federation organization; Crystal Lake Force is the competitive arm of the organization. Federation players and non-Crystal Lake Soccer Federation people under 13 are able to get free tickets to the games, and Rockall said the organization is trying to do something good for the community.

Said Cevallos: “It’s a world of possibilities.”

Crystal Lake Force has four home games planned for this season on May 31, June 7, June 14 and June 21, all starting at 7 p.m. at The Mac, 1310 Ridgefield Road, Crystal Lake. More details about the team are available at uwssoccer.com, and tickets can be bought at linktr.ee/UWS_CrystalLakeForce.