{"id":22332,"date":"2018-11-29T12:48:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T17:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22332"},"modified":"2018-11-29T12:48:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T17:48:47","slug":"auroras-bejleri-earns-league-1s-young-star-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-bejleri-earns-league-1s-young-star-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Bejleri earns League 1\u2019s Young Star award"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marked as Ontario\u2019s top developmental league to the professional level, League1 Ontario\u2019s Young Player of the Year award shines the spotlight on players with a bright future on the pitch.
\nThis year\u2019s recipient may represent Albania on the international pitch, but she has called Aurora home in a breakout season this year with the Aurora FC club.
\nJoining the squad at just sixteen years of age, Markela Bejleri caught the eye of scouts early in her first year of semi-professional soccer.
\nThe captain said it was her \u201cphysicality and mentality\u201d that has brought her success, while her assistant coach Marc Hamilton echoed her words.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s not the most vocal player on the park, but I think she leads by example,\u201d said Hamilton. \u201cI also think that her sense of creativity on and off the ball, she provides a great role model for the younger players to look up to.\u201d
\nWith a pair of goals in nine appearances with the Aurora club, Bejleri led her team in scoring in the 2018 season, highlighted by a call-up to the Albanian National squad, and a number of appearances on the Under-19 Albanian side.
\n\u201cIt was different,\u201d said Bejleri. \u201cYou\u2019re getting international experience, so it feels a bit tougher. But it\u2019s just the experience itself that\u2019s helped me become more aware of what I need to work on, and what I need to do to get better.\u201d
\nThe midfielder follows in the footsteps of fellow Aurora alum Sarah Stratigakis, who won the Young Player of the Year award in the 2016 season.
\nShe has already declared her intentions to join Quinnipac University in the NCAA Division I program, a decision she finalized just last week.
\nVaughan Soccer Club\u2019s Dylan Sacramento was named the league\u2019s Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marked as Ontario\u2019s top developmental league to the professional level, League1 Ontario\u2019s Young Player of the Year award shines the spotlight on players with a bright future on the pitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-11-29-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Oc","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:58:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}