FREMONT – The plan had been to focus on softball.
Hailey Taylor grew up playing soccer and continued with it through middle school, but when she entered high school the plan was to concentrate on one sport — and she chose softball.
Hailey Taylor
But her soccer-playing friends, Miranda Schetzer and Mary Miller, along with coach Phil Collison, didn’t like that plan. And when the Lady Giants’ goalkeeper position came open before Taylor’s sophomore year, they enticed her to come out back to soccer – though she’d never played the goalkeeper position before.
“I’m really glad they did,” said Taylor Thursday afternoon when she signed to continue her soccer career at Heidelberg University.
“It’s really exciting. When my last soccer game ended, I didn’t know I would continue playing, so looking (back) and knowing how I felt then and how I feel now, it feels completely different. I’m very happy I can keep playing because I love the sport so much and I never want to stop.”
That Taylor has gone from goalkeeping novice to collegiate athlete is quite the leap, given how specialized the position is, Collison said.
“For sure her athleticism and her willingness to work will be a huge benefit for her at the next level,” Collison said. “She’s only been playing this for three years and it takes a long time to learn that position and she’s done a really good job with it. She’s getting better every year communicating with her field players, which is very important.”
Her senior season Taylor showed just how far she has come. She backstopped the Lady Giants to a program-best 7-8-2 record, stopping 148 shots last fall on 266 shots fired at the goal. She allowed 61 goals and had a .587 save percentage of shots on goal. She was also the winning goal-keeper as the Lady Giants won their first-ever game in the TRAC.
Taylor herself can see the giant strides she’s taken in her career.
“Especially this year, all my teammates said how well I did this year,” she said. “I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but just looking back when I first started, I sat out for my first four soccer games, then I started every game this past season. It’s a great feeling.”
Ross goalkeeper Hailey Taylor is congratulated by Perkins coach Steve Schuster.
In addition to her three years of soccer, Taylor earned four varsity letters in softball, two in cheerleading, was involved in band, National Honor Society, class cabinet and is ninth in her class with a 4.1 GPA.
Collison said Taylor’s work ethic and intelligence, as well as her athleticism will be one of her biggest assets at Heidelberg.
“Keepers have to be smart, they have to be intelligent, they have to be good athletes,” he said. “She definitely translates all of those things. She’s a great student in the classroom, she’s a great student of the game. I think those are factors that have allowed her to grow as a player.
“I look forward to nothing but good things for her.”
Taylor said she plans to double major in mathematics and business and wants to go into actuarial science.
With Heidelberg’s incumbent goalkeeper a senior, Taylor expects to begin her college career on JV and travel as the back-up with the varsity.
“And I’m perfectly fine with that,” she said. “I’d rather come in that way.”
And that makes sense. After all, she has a good track record of taking over the position as a sophomore.