Rough Riders Celebrate Most Successful USL Y Season to Date
The Long Island Rough Riders are heading toward their most successful season in the USL Y League.
Eight boys and girls teams have already qualified through North Atlantic region leagues for the national finals in Tampa, Fla., in December. There might be a few others by the time the regular season ends on Wednesday, August 19th.
“We know that eight are confirmed with one or two more pending,” Rough Riders club director Adam Allaway said.
“We’ve had a very successful season, our biggest yet with 37 teams. … We’re just very proud of the overall program. Hopefully coming back with a national championship or two.”
More than 600 players in those teams competed in the USL Y League. They participated in a six- or seven-week program this summer. Players don’t have to leave their club teams to participate. The program is open to boys and girls from the Under-10 through U-17 age groups, although the U-10 teams are not eligible for the national finals.
The Rough Riders are the USL Y club that has two sets of teams competing in the summer leagues. Their East teams’ headquarters are at the Globall Sports Center in Uniondale, N.Y., while they call Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, N.Y. home for their West squads.
“We’re gradually making steps forward,” Allaway said. “As we’ve grown, the competitive nature has remained, which is obviously a big, big success for us.”
Indeed, it has.
Keeping every team on the same page is important.
And it’s not always about the destination, but the journey.
“I think it’s about how they get there,” Allaway said. “With the growth of the teams that we’ve had, it’s very important that we’re all aligned and we’re all working towards the same goal. The Rough Riders is still a supplemental feeder for a lot of top academies, including our affiliate academies here on Long Island, which eventually then tie back into the Rough Riders men’s and women’s team, which are our pre-professional setups under the Rough Riders. So, winning very much is important for us.”
Let’s face it. Having at least eight teams headed for the finals Tampa is a big deal. The Rough Riders had four teams that reached the 2024 finals, while five squads participated last year.
“It’s extremely gratifying,” Allaway said. “We’re extremely proud of everyone, including the staff, the players, the front office. It’s hard to build a club and a team that has both growth and success. We’ve been very fortunate about that as we have expanded our growth. We now want to achieve and bring home a few national titles to really cement ourselves as one of the top USL youth programs in the country, as well as being the largest.”
Allaway noted that all Rough Riders teams participated in “extremely competitive brackets.”
“Just happy with the success of the entirety of the program,” he said. “All of our teams have been extremely competitive, competing against top academies that play year-round here on Long Island. The Rough Riders are one of the supplemental summer select programs left in the USL Y League.
“We’re extremely proud that we can bring together differences in rosters, differences in players that potentially compete elsewhere in the fall and the spring. But they’re able to come together and really look for opportunities to try and expand themselves outside of their club academies.”
The Rough Riders teams’ most memorable matches?
Allaway said that the most enjoyable ones came when the club’s East and West teams met on the pitch in the same league. There’s nothing like an intra-club derby to stir the competitive fires of teams that already are highly rated.
“They’re really exciting for me because they’re competitive,” Allaway said. “They’re hard-earned, but they show and align that we have growth and success all over Long Island, and under one brand.”
The USL Y nationals are scheduled for Tampa, Fla. from December 10-13.
Players who are interested in applying for a tryout in 2027 can do so by visiting these pages:
* Nassau – https://liroughriders.com/usl-y-nassau/
* Suffolk – https://liroughriders.com/usl-y-suffolk/