It's already been a dream season for the Northern Steel 14-and-under boys soccer team.

But it's not over yet.

The team will pack its sunblock and will head to Jacksonville, Fla., for the national tournament, which begins next Thursday.

Northern Steel earned a spot in the national tournament because the Barrington Soccer Club of Chicago could not attend.

That club beat Northern Steel in the regional final, but Barrington's loss has been Northern Steel's gain.

"We're extremely excited," said Northern Steel coach Kevin Wilhelm. "Not many teams from Western Pennsylvania make it that far."

This team has been groomed to make it.

The players have been together for three seasons. Even when they were young, brash pups at the age of 10 and 11, they had designs on greatness.

"Back then, they were well advanced for their age," Wilhelm said. "You could kind of predict it a little bit. But you can be a brilliant team and still never get this far. You have to have a little bit of magic."

Wilhelm said the team will need more than a little bit of defense to fare well at the national tournament.

But his team is no different from the others, he said.

"It's one of those things where the competition is so tight, everyone is a favorite," Wilhelm said. "You have to have a little bit of magic."

Northern Steel will be helped by the quality of competition it faced in the regional. The team is coming out of one of what traditionally is the top regions in the country.

Joe Haefner has excelled in goal this season for Northern Steel, which entered the regional tournament with a 31-1-3 record.

Defenders on the team are Jordan Kennedy, Mike Brizzi, Josh Burke, Blake McChesney and Drew Donoghue.

The offense is led by Cody Coven, Pete Cline, Kevin Wood, Adam Sharbaugh, Alex Choi, Aaron McGarvey, Adrian Karas and Ethan Green.

No matter what happens in Jacksonville, the experience will be invaluable to the team,

Wilhelm, who is the men's and women's soccer coach at Thiel College and a Slippery Rock High School graduate, plans to keep the team together for years to come.

"The club is growing in leaps and bounds," Wilhelm said. "This isn't something that happens overnight. It takes years of hard work."