{"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":"<p><strong>By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<br \/>\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.<br \/>\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.<br \/>\nThe captain said it was her \u201cphysicality and mentality\u201d that has brought her success, while her assistant coach Marc Hamilton echoed her words.<br \/>\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<br \/>\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.<br \/>\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<br \/>\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.<br \/>\nShe has already declared her intentions to join Quinnipac University in the NCAA Division I program, a decision she finalized just last week.<br \/>\nVaughan Soccer Club\u2019s Dylan Sacramento was named the league\u2019s Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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":{"footnotes":""},"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_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/2018-11-29-07.jpg","_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}]}}