For more than a decade Brian Ching would come home to Hawaii and work his December soccer camp and each time the little girl with the focused gaze grew and improved a little more.

From the time she was 5 years old, on up through high school at Kamehameha, Caprice Dydasco came looking for tips and competition.

If the girls couldn’t provide enough of the latter, well, she went against the boys in drills.

Or Ching, a six-time Major League Soccer All-Star and U.S. World Cup player.

“She was always one of the kids who really stood out,” Ching recalled.

So it is with more admiration than surprise that as the managing director of the Houston Dash, the site host, he welcomed her this week to Houston’s BBVA Compass Stadium for Sunday’s National Women’s Soccer League Championship.

Dydasco, a starting defender, will lead the Washington Spirit against the Western New York Flash in the title match of women’s professional soccer on Fox Sports 1.

“I’ve seen her develop over the last 12 or 13 years from a 5-year-old into a real world-class player,” Ching said Friday. “It is pretty amazing really. And, pretty cool, too.”

Dydasco was one of three women from Hawaii high schools — Natasha Kai (Sky Blue FC) and Mana Shim (Portland Thorns) being the others — competing in the NWSL this year.

That Dydasco has a shot at the championship in just her second year “would be a big reward for our team and big for Hawaii,” she said.

That she would be drafted and get the chance to play on the pro level was a thought that didn’t crystallize for Dydasco until college.

“I remember talking with my coach (at UCLA) and, at the time, I was playing a new position, fullback, for the first time as a freshman,” Dydasco said. “He talked to me about, maybe, having the potential for a career in soccer. He said, ‘I can see this thing really take off for you.’”

But, she said, ‘I didn’t take it seriously (at first). But as the year went on I really got excited. I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

She became a four-year starter at UCLA, helping to lead the Bruins to the 2013 national championship.

From her sophomore year on she took extra classes with the intention of being able to graduate early and make herself available for the NWSL draft. It paid off when she was a third-round pick of the Spirit in the January 2015 draft.

She comes from a soccer-grounded family, her brother, Zane, having played for the Air Force Academy, and father, Jose, coaching the Bulls.

But the diesel drive was her own. “Her development over the years has been pretty amazing,” Ching said. “She had talent and she worked hard, but she was on the small side (5 feet, 3 inches now) and you kind of wondered if she could compete at the highest level that way. But she proved that she could. One of the great things about soccer is that it isn’t all about size and strength. She’s made herself into such a good player and knew how to use her body to be successful, very successful, at every level and now she can win a championship.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.