Despite being originally placed on the JV team at the beginning of the season, sophomore Andrew Engelmeyer has become the starting goalie for the varsity soccer team. As starting varsity goalie, Engelmeyer is under constant pressure as the last line of defense for the team.

“During the tryouts I was competing against Wyatt [Harlan] and Mark [Umstead]. I would not say I was really thinking about making varsity to be honest, I was just trying to go out there and play,” Engelmeyer said. “I was not really thinking about whether I would be on varsity, I was just playing soccer.”

In his freshman season, Engelmeyer was goalie of the C Team, and, Engelmeyer also plays for a club team, Scott Gallagher.

“In club soccer, the players have a lot more touch, and it is much more fundamental; the little things are really emphasized,” Engelmeyer said.

The experience of playing club soccer and other soccer competitions helped Engelmeyer prepare for varsity competition.

“With Gallagher soccer it is very very fundamental, you are playing against very skillful players already,” Engelmeyer said. “During the winter league, I played with people from Europe, which allowed me to play people my age and people who were juniors. I got used to playing people that were older than me.”

However, the JV tournament Engelmeyer played in at the beginning of the season is very different then the varsity games he has played in since.

“When I was on JV, it was a much slower paced game. The ball did not move around as fast and there are not as hard of shots, everything was just a little slower,” Engelmeyer said. “Going from JV to varsity the ball moves very quick. If you don’t have a good, solid pass people can jump on your paces, the shots are really really good too.”

Engelmeyer has played soccer ever since he was a child, mainly as a goalie.

“There are different styles of keeping, personally I feel like I am more of a technical keeper, where my technique on dives, on crosses is where I try to set myself apart from other people,” Engelmeyer said. “As a goalie you also need to know how to position your defense. Say the defense is not picking up a man or some runner is left open, you as the goalie have to be able to communicate well with your defense.”

Through his years of practicing, Engelmeyer has mastered the qualities of being a goalie: communication, leadership and intelligence.

“You have to be a leader back there, because when the keeper is not talking, the team is in trouble,” Engelmeyer said. “As a keeper I can look up and scan the field and see everything. You have to see where the strikers are and where there might be runners, and even if you don’t see exactly some guy making a run, you see the spaces open on the field were the defense might need to drop back. You can see the field a lot so if you able to communicate and be a leader, it really helps.”

Even after years of playing soccer, Engelmeyer continues to love soccer, and wants to perfect his craft.

“When I making a save and I know I made it very very close to perfect, I know I did everything I was supposed to do on that save, it is a very great feeling,” Engelmeyer said. “I want to get to the point where I can make that perfect save every time, because when you make that perfect save you are like that’s it, that’s what you are supposed to do. I want to have that feeling every time I make a save.”