oakland, california – Auckland Roots SC announced Monday that the club has signed three players from USL League 2 team Project 51O to USL Academy contracts for the remainder of the 2022 USL Championship season. -Old Etsgar Cruz joins the first-team squad.
All three were part of the USL League 2 squad that won the League 2 Southwest Division this summer, along with fellow USL Academy players Timothy Cyrrell, Javier Mariona, Javier Vedrabela and Lorenzo Hernandez.
Rodriguez is a student at Pittsburgh High School and has been playing for Newark FC since 2017. A native of Pittsburgh, Calif., Rodriguez made three starts for Project 51O in the spring, and for the past six years, the US club has been in football’s Player Development Program (PDP). He is a PDP player in the state pool and played in the 2019 Futures tournament.
Roots SC technical director Jordan Ferrell said: “Edwin is the young goalkeeper we’ve been looking for and we believe he has a lot of potential.” We tackled each challenge thrown at us and exceeded our expectations every time, until we integrated it into our training.
McIntosh was also a Newark FC player and was the youngest member of the Project 51O team born in 2007. McIntosh, a native of Newark, California, recently finished his freshman season at Fremont’s Mission his San Jose High School. He scored the team leading with 14 goals in just 11 appearances. McIntosh was recently selected to attend Northern California’s prestigious Player Development Program’s He’s Three-Day Lodging Camp in Davis. He scored the winning goal for his Project 51O late in the game against Marin FC last spring.
“D’Amario is an intelligent young wingback who has really grown as a player and as a person over the past year, taking advantage of the opportunities he has with Project 51O,” said Ferrell. “His relatively quick adaptation to men’s football and his willingness to continue to develop as a player have led to our confidence in him and his progression to the first team.
Cruz is an attacking midfielder from Modesto, California, who attended the SUSC Halcones Youth Club and Ceres High School. Cruz scored the goal that won the Southwest Division title for Project 51O in his final game of the season in his USL League Two regular this summer.
“Etsgar’s creative offensive play has seen him move quickly through our systems, from this year’s Roots Recognize Initiative to making a big impact with Project 51O this summer. , providing teams with fresh and sharp ideas for consistently creating goals,” said Ferrell. “We are excited to see him every day in our first team environment as the next step in his journey.”
