Local teams come together to celebrate women's sports - TribLIVE

About an hour ago

There was a celebration of women’s sports Thursday night.

Pittsburgh’s women’s sports teams gathered at the Thelma Lovette YMCA in the Hill District for the second annual Girls and Women Sports Event. The event’s aim was to celebrate women in sports and inspire female athletes in Pittsburgh to realize the valuable opportunities they have to continue their athletic careers locally.

The event featured representatives from eight local athletic clubs: Pittsburgh Hotspurs (women’s soccer), Steel City Roller Derby, Pittsburgh Forge (women’s rugby), Pittsburgh Banshees (women’s Gaelic football), Pittsburgh Passion (women’s football), Pittsburgh Ultimate (ultimate frisbee), ASCEND (climbing gym) and the Pittsburgh Puffins (women’s ice hockey).

“This is amazing. To celebrate women in sports, there’s no better way to do that than to bring in a bunch of teams that compete in the area, have a good time and learn some new things about the other organizations around here,” the Puffins’ Sarah Lim said. “A lot of girls come out of college and return home and have these great skills but don’t know much about what the area offers.”

The event allowed the local organizations to build more chemistry with each other as well.

“I thought that we should be supporting each other and advocating for each other and working together toward a common goal. We should find a way to celebrate this and get some networking going,” said the Hotspurs’ Jordan Daloisio, who helped organize the event.

“Being able to bring the community in and seeing the athletes and learning about what programs exist is great. Maybe they didn’t know they could play ice hockey or maybe they didn’t know they could play Gaelic football? Making them accessible to the community is a big part of it. I think it’s good for girls, and anyone in general, to see that sports can still be an integral part of your life and be fulfilling in other ways.”

In addition to the various organization’s demonstrations, a question-and-answer session was held with a panel of eight women — Rebecca Trapp, Ebony Montgomery, Chelesea Zahn, Fanica Payne, Stephanie Harrison, Annie Schiller, Amanda Fortunato and Maria Rose — representing a variety of roles within the local athletic community.

“This is so awesome. I am a psychologist and the mental health benefits of playing sports are so vast. To have growing access to that is necessary. It’s so great what everyone is doing. It makes impacts on people’s lives,” said Harrison, whose women’s soccer organization, Steel City FC, merged with the Hotspurs in November.

“I was an athlete my whole life and I didn’t know a lot of these organizations existed. Just to be out and meet everyone and see how awesome all these organizations are and see them growing is super cool.”

The organizations strive to work together in order to enhance all the athletic opportunities available for women.

“We all try to help support each other as much as we can. It’s cool. We want to do that even more,” Harrison said. “When I think about the U.S. women’s soccer team and the mark they’ve made in this country and in the world, I feel like there seems to be a momentum around women’s sports and kind of a push toward a bit more equality, in terms of representation and pay. I think if some of those barriers come down, we’re going to see more and more girls get involved and stay involved.”

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Local teams come together to celebrate women's sports - TribLIVE

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