GREENFIELD — When Kelsi McLaughlin isn’t practicing or playing soccer, she’s likely on her way to practicing or playing soccer.
When asked how often she works to improve her game, McLaughlin said, “After this (phone interview) I am going to go running. I want to improve my speed, agility and endurance on the field.”
At home she said she’ll stand up in the family’s play room, where she’ll work on juggling to improve her touch on the ball.
Sometimes she will go to the field and work with others. Now, with the high school season completed, she’s practicing three times a week with her club team.
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When she is watching professional soccer games or highlight videos, she focuses on the players that play her position, hoping to catch some tips on things she can implement in her game.
“Soccer is definitely one of my biggest passions. I love playing the game,” McLaughlin said.
“She loves it, lives it and breaths it,” Greenfield-Central coach Brandon Steeno said of his super sophomore who he affectionately calls a soccer nerd.
“To call her a student of the game is an understatement,” he added.
The Greenfield-Central youngster is the Hancock County Girls Soccer Player of the Year. She scored 33 goals, one shy of the school record, and added eight assist for an impressive 74-point season for the 14-3 Cougars.
In finding the back of the net, the coach adds, “She’s a stone-cold killer when it comes to scoring goals.”
Even with her outstanding, near-record setting numbers, Steeno said McLaughlin has always been a team-first player.
He said she could have crushed the record, but she didn’t play much in some of the team’s blowout victories. She played only one half in a 6-0 win over Shortridge, barely into the second half in an 8-0 triumph over Shelbyville and a mere 17 minutes in an 11-0 goal-fest against New Castle.
She not only scored a lot of goals, she scored a lot of big ones.
Though the Cougars were unable to come all the way back in an early regular-season game against eventual Hoosier Heritage Conference and sectional champion Mt. Vernon, McLaughlin certainly made the game more interesting. Down 3-0, she scored two goals just 92 seconds apart to get Greenfield-Central within 3-2 in the second half.
Against another Hancock County and conference rival, New Palestine, coached by former Greenfield-Central coach Erin Clark, McLaughlin scored to tie the game, 2-2, with just seven minutes remaining. She scored the winning goal 1:14 into the second overtime.
To add to the degree of difficulty in scoring against the Dragons, McLaughlin was man-marked by New Palestine the entire match. She was shadowed the entire evening on every move she made.
In the Greenfield-Central Kicking Cancer Tourney in September, she scored the game-winner in overtime to take the tournament title over Lawrence North, 2-1.
“She knows when her team needs her and she steps up and smells it,” Steeno added.
Playing the game since she was 3 years old, McLaughlin said she started taking the game more seriously when she was in fifth grade. Formerly a two-sport athlete, she gave up playing basketball after seventh grade.
She began getting involved in club soccer five years ago.
“I got to an age where I wanted to focus on one sport. I wanted to continue it and I wanted to be good at it,” McLaughlin said.
She’s definitely that.
She plays with the Indy Premier Soccer Club and was part of their U17 Girls Elite team that qualified for the US Soccer 2019-20 National League. She’ll play all over the country in the league that runs from December through March.
“Once I made Indy Premier, they told me I was talented and a hard-worker and if I keep up the hard work I could be a special player,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin has taken that advice and has literally ran with it — and juggled with it, too.
“I just enjoy playing. I love scoring and playing my position,” McLaughlin said. “Soccer is the physical fit for me.”
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Mt. Vernon was one of two Indiana high schools — and one of just 33 nationally — to be recognized with a first-ever Team Pinnacle Award.
Last week, the United Soccer Coaches announced the winners of the inaugural awards. Thirty-three high school teams and 19 college programs are recipients of the award for the 2018-19 academic year for achieving a high level of fair play, educational excellence and success on the pitch, according to a press release.
To be considered for this award, teams must have received either the Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze version of the High School or College Team Ethics and Sportsmanship Award; achieved recognition in the classroom as a recipient of the High School or College Team Academic Award; and recorded a winning percentage of .750 or higher during the respective season.
The Marauders finished the year 13-6 and 7-0 in the Hoosier Heritage Conference, falling in the sectional final to East Central.
“This prestigious new team award designed to recognize a combination of academics, sportsmanship and athletic excellence may be the most difficult award to achieve for any soccer program,” said Steve Veal, United Soccer Coaches Awards Manager. “The award was proposed by Mike Lynch, Women’s Coach at Belmont Abbey College (N.C.) and chair of our Faith-Based Coaches Advocacy Group, and approved by our Awards Committee. A special thanks to Mike and Tom Gerlach, Boys and Girls Coach at Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, Tenn., who chaired the College and High School Committees respectively for their vision and service.”
Teams will be formally recognized at either the College Coaches Reception on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020 or the High School Coaches Breakfast on Friday, Jan 17, 2020 in Baltimore, Md., as part of the United Soccer Coaches Convention.
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