Sports

Sports & Recreation

WITH Jim Hague

ogsmar@aol.com

Lyndhurst’s Gress signs with Penn State women’s soccer

Although she never played a minute of girls’ soccer at Lyndhurst High School, Mackenzie Gress was treated like Golden Bear royalty last week, when she signed her national letter of intent to attend Penn State University and play soccer there next fall.

Gress has been a nationally acclaimed goalkeeper since she was a youngster and played for several Team USA squads over her career, including a stint with the 16-and-under national team that traveled to Europe last fall for the World Cup.

She has played for STA, one of the premier soccer academies in the nation, earning her place to get recognized by a major college program such as Penn State.

In fact, Gress has been committed to Penn State since she was a freshman at Lyndhurst High, getting that decision out of the way at an early date.

“It was always my dream school growing up,” said Gress, considered to be one of the top young goalkeepers in the country. “I went to a couple of camps there and just fell in love with the place. They then started to recruit me and one thing led to another.”

So even though Gress never played for Lyndhurst, the school’s athletic director Jeff Radigan set it up for Gress to sign her scholarship letter on the field with her name featured prominently on the scoreboard.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Gress said. “Now I’m officially a Nittany Lion. I was pretty surprised when Mr. Radigan told me of the plans for me to sign my letter here, considering I never played for Lyndhurst. But I’m always going to be a Lyndhurst girl. Mr. Radigan pulled out all the stops. I was very impressed.”

Gress shared the day with her family and friends, one of whom is Enrique Mutsoli, last week’s Observer Athlete of the Week who leads the state in scoring with 39 goals.

“We’ve been good friends for a long time,” Gress said. “I was happy that he showed up for me. He’s a great soccer player.”

Gress said that it was somewhat of a relief that she finally signed her national letter of intent.

“Some pressure has been lifted off of me,” Gress said. “I mean, I made my decision three years ago and nothing was going to change that. I didn’t have to impress college coaches that might have recruited me.”

Gress was also impressed to see her name on the Penn State website.

Photo by Jim Hague Seniors Alan Castillo (left) and Juan Rojas (right) have been two of the catalysts to lead Kearny to its fi rst state sectional championship since 2017.

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Section 1, Group IV is considered to be the toughest public school sectional in New Jersey.

“We told them that they were going to have to face tough competition and that we could never take any game lightly,” Galka said.

Facing West Orange was a challenge, considering that the Mountaineers (19-5) were a bigger and stronger team.

“They like to play a physical game,” Galka said. “We saw them play against Clifton and we saw that they were going to be difficult to play.”

And the Mountaineers drew first blood by scoring a goal just two minutes into the game. Francisco Soca scored for the Mountaineers, giving West Orange the early 1-0 lead.

“We just had to stop the bleeding,” Galka said. “We couldn’t let them score again. Sometimes, it’s hard to do that, but we didn’t panic. We knew that the game hadn’t been decided yet.”

West Orange held the advantage into halftime.

“We might have been losing, but we weren’t really worried,” said senior striker Juan Rojas. “We were playing really well. I knew it was just a matter of time before we scored.”

Rojas was right, because he was pulled down in the penalty area midway through the second half and was awarded a penalty kick.

“My plan was to hit it low,” Rojas said of the free kick. “I never get nervous when I take a penalty kick. I just try to shoot it hard.”

Rojas’ shot eluded West Orange goalkeeper Justin Scavalla for the equalizer.

The game remained that way through a tense second half, only thanks to Kearny goalie Joshua Rodriguez making two big consecutive saves in the closing minutes of regulation. Rodriguez stopped the initial shot and when the rebound escaped the Kearny defense, Rodriguez had to come up huge once again to punch aside another close scoring attempt.

“If they got another one there, it would have been very tough for us,” Galka said. “Josh got hurt earlier, but came back in and made those saves to keep us alive.”

As the match went to the golden goal overtime, the confidence was there for the Kardinals. They also had help from a higher power.

“All week in practice I prayed,” said standout defender Alan Castillo, who has enjoyed an All-State caliber season. “Every night before I went to bed, I prayed. During the game, I prayed.”

So did Rojas. He prayed for another reason.

“All week long, I was sick,” Rojas said. “I was worried that I might not be able to play. I prayed to God to get me healthy to help my team.”

Rojas did exactly that. He obviously recovered enough to play and in the overtime, the team’s leading scorer performed magic once again.

“I saw the defender watch the ball bounce,” Rojas said. “I just got it front of it, stopped it with my heel and headed it forward. I touched it forward and saw Aidan coming forward and he just tapped it in.”

Mansilla’s goal set off a frenzy at a packed Kearny High Stadium, with about

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1,500 fans in attendance.

It was Mansilla’s 13th goal of the season. Incredibly, the Kardinals have seven players who have scored 10 or more goals. It’s impeccable scoring balance. Rojas scored 22 goals in a shortened season last year, but he sacrificed the goal scoring to provide good passes to his teammates. Rojas has 13 assists this season.

“It meant a lot to contribute to a state sectional championship,” Rojas said. “I feel that this year it has been harder for me to score goals, but if I can help with giving assists, then that’s fine.”

“There has never been an ego problem with this team,” Galka said. “Juan is very happy to assist on goals and has done very well this year. I think that’s the sign of a good team when so many kids are contributing, especially in the tough games. The team is the star of this team. There isn’t one player.”

Galka applauded the efforts of Castillo, who has earned his place in Kearny soccer folklore.

“He hasn’t taken a bad step all year,” Galka said of Castillo. “He’s skillful and reads the game well. He’s one of the best center backs we’ve ever had.”

Castillo said that he went to a lot of the games during the 2017 state championship run.

“I was in eighth grade and wanted to someday get a chance to win a state championship like that team,” Castillo said. “I spent a lot of time thinking about this.”

Now, the Kardinals are two wins away from winning yet another state crown.

“It means a lot to get a shot to be here,” Rojas said. “It’s been four years. I know how big it is to the people of Kearny.”

“It’s been so enjoyable,” Galka said. “I think we could go another month if we had to. I told the kids to enjoy it, enjoy every practice. You can see that they’re doing that. It’s been a fantastic season, but we want to finish it the right way. We have to beat a good Elizabeth team, a good skilled team like us.”

But only one of these teams comes from a place known as “Soccertown, USA.” It’s almost destiny that Kearny should be a state champion again.

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“I was really proud of that,” Gress said.

Gress will enroll at Penn State in January in time for the spring semester and practices with her new teammates. She will be a student in the school’s health and human development program with the hope of eventually majoring in kinesiology to become a sports scientist.

“But I want to be a professional soccer player,” Gress said. “I think it’s going to be beneficial for me to start school early and adjust to the playing level at such a great school like Penn State, one of the best women’s soccer programs in the country.”

Gress will spend the next two months playing in some games with her club team STA and do some goalkeeper training.

“I try to get better each day,” Gress said. “I will prepare to play in the spring. It’s a possibility that I might play right away and not redshirt. It’s just my time now to shine and getting there six months early will give me a good head start.”

Gress is ready for the next challenge of playing major college soccer.

“I never regretted making the decision not to play soccer in high school,” Gress said. “I’ve had moments when I thought about being with the friends I grew up my whole life with. But I made the choice instead of playing for my high school. I think I made the right choice.”

Photo courtesy of Kim Hykey Lyndhurst’s Mackenzie Gress signed her national letter of intent to attend Penn State University last week at Lyndhurst High School.

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