KIDS to WATCH : ANNABEL DOSTAL

Soccer Anaheim Age 12

Annabel Dostal already knows the frustration of the bench.

Playing for a boys’ 13-and-under club team because the girls’ team she helped to the Western Regional 12-and-under championship disbanded the year before, Dostal was getting limited action in games last fall.

“I kept going up to the coach and saying, ‘When am I going to get my chance?’ ” Dostal said. “But sometimes I wouldn’t get to play in the whole game.”

Eventually, Dostal quit when it became clear to her and her parents that the coach would prefer that she didn’t play.

It was a rare roadblock for Dostal, a seventh-grader at Ball Junior High School who has been identified by Olympic development coaches as one of the top prospects in California.

Last year at age 11, she was the youngest player on the Southern California 14-and-under Olympic development team. Based on her performance at that level, she was invited to the 14-and-under Western Region Olympic Development camp in Colorado, where she took part in the five days of rigorous training designed to introduce promising players to national coaching.

“The thing that impresses me most about her is she’s very small and she competes three age groups above her own,” said Ian Sawyers, who coached the Southern California 14-and-under team last year. “And she competes . It’s not a sentimental thing.”

Dostal, who at 4 feet 9 often must mark players a foot taller, is a midfielder with good ball skills and what Sawyers called the “good tendencies” Olympic development coaches are trying to find and develop.

Zdeneck (Dick) Dostal introduced Annabel and his older son, Erik, a sophomore at Loara High, to soccer soon after they were walking. Erik, a two-year starter and second-team all-Empire League selection for Loara High School, also made the Southern California Olympic development team in his age group last summer.