Kate Grecsek is hoping she’ll stand out more in her third year of varsity girls soccer for South High.
The Pirates junior defender is used to working to be seen and heard at home, where she’s part of a big family. Grecsek has a twin brother, Sean, who is on the South boys soccer team. He was born just before her, making her officially the youngest of seven Grecsek children spanning 11 years. Being part of a large family has influenced all that she does.
“I absolutely love that,” Grecsek said. “I feel like it’s pushed me to be the person I am today. And it’s every person in my family has a different personality. So it’s like adapting and learning how each person is. And also I feel like that’s the main reason why I’m as competitive as I am today, just because all of them. We all grew up playing soccer and sports.”
They do a lot together, and Grecsek is particularly fond of their summer trips to Lake George, where she’s an avid water skier. And when she’s not enjoying that, she’s often playing soccer. Some in her family, like another brother, Gavin, as well as her father, John, already have gone on to play soccer in college. Grecsek is hoping to do the same in a couple of years.
“Ever since I was little, it’s been my dream to play at the D1 level for soccer and I feel like that’s where I’m trying to go now,” she said. “Right now I’m in the middle of the whole recruiting process, so in the future we’ll see where all that leads to.”
This year is a major opportunity to impress college coaches. She’ll definitely have that chance with the South team this fall.
“Kate’s a natural leader on the field,” said Pirates head coach Erika Deetjen. “You can always feel her presence, whether she’s on the ball or she’s making moves off the ball. She wants to be recognized by our conference, and we’re going to try to get her to do that.”
Grecsek spent her first two varsity seasons moving around wherever the South High girls soccer team needed her. After scoring a pair of goals and adding a pair of assists as a freshman, she came out of last year with four goals and nine assists. Deetjen, a Pirates alum who is in her first year back at her alma mater, expects Grecsek to make her presence known primarily out of the center back spot, with some time at defensive center midfielder.
“She’s one of those players that I really want to be making those forward runs and getting involved and making assists from the back line and dribbling through, and finding ways to find the goal as well,” Deetjen said. “So she is a very strong player defensively and offensively. She has great ball skills. She has awesome vision. She really is kind of like a jack of all trades.”
She has gotten off to a great start to her third season with a pair of goals, one of them on an incredibly well-struck set piece from 40 yards, as well as three assists. Riley Duguay leads South with seven goals and Natalie Alvarado Vilchez has 39 saves at the other end as the Pirates jumped out to a 2-1 record in the early going, including a wild 5-4 win over Robbinsville.
“I think our team will do really good,” Grecsek said. “It’s just a matter of getting used to playing. We have a couple of new players. There are like six freshmen on varsity now. So it’s a matter of getting to know how to play with them. But I think we’re going to do really good this season.”
Grecsek is excited to be one of the upperclassmen. She brings experience from two seasons of high school play plus years of playing for Players Development Academy, where she’s been a captain for four years. She recognizes what the freshmen are going through and tries to help.
“Just kind of helping them through drills or anything or telling them to always keep their head up, just kind of organizing everyone and telling them just keep believing in themselves,” Grecsek said. “Like sometimes when we’re down a goal or trying to get back, I just keep trying to remind them we’re still in this game.”
She looked up to the seniors when she was a freshman on the Pirates, and now she’s a player her younger South teammates can look to as a steady defensive presence who can also push up into the attack and be a strong communicator.
“Defensively, even for my club, I’ve been playing center back and anywhere in the defense since I was little, for over 10 or 12 years,” she said. “So I feel like that’s my main spot where I’m comfortable in, but in the midfield, I like just playing there because then I can just be the center of everything and combine with everyone.”
The Pirates are figuring out how to best use everyone. They need the freshmen to fill some spots after graduating a solid senior class from last year’s 9-8 team that won the Colonial Valley Conference Valley Division. That earned them a promotion to the CVC Colonial Division.
“This year it’s like even higher standards that we have to go up to,” Grecsek said. “So we’ll see where that leads us for this year. But I think we’ll do a really good job of like standing up to these better teams in this new conference. But it’s the same as last year, we’ve played them before, we know how they play, and I think we’ll do a good job as long as we are on our right game and play good.”
They are taking on the tougher division with a large group of newcomers, including their coach. Deetjen returned to the area from Miami, where she had assisted in coaching, to take over her alma mater’s program.
“This was not on my bingo card at all,” Deetjen said. “I was an assistant coach with the boys team right after I graduated from college. So I was with Bryan Fisher starting 2015. And I did volunteer, I was a volunteer coach for, I guess, five years and I never thought about coaching the girls side when I was there. But now that I’m back, I don’t know why I didn’t want to do that.”
She was struck quickly by the cohesion of the team despite its mix of class members and talents. She also sees a team hungry to work together to develop.
“I want to make sure that they win together as a team and we lose together as a team,” Deetjen said. “But everyone’s giving effort and they’re all always playing with intensity.”
Pulling it all together is a trick for any new coach. She has been working with the team to become more invested in each other regardless of where they are on the field.
“Playing more as a unit and our transition,” Deetjen said. “So just making sure that we’re all defending together as a team and we’re all attacking as a team. I want to make sure my center backs are going forward, they’re scoring goals and they’re involved in the play. And then, if a striker loses a ball or someone loses the ball, I can have my striker getting all the way back. I want them to play for each other and want to cover for each other.”
Grecsek is one of the players who has helped implement the strategy. She’s already seen early success in being able to contribute at both ends of the field. Getting up and back shouldn’t be an issue for Grecsek, who has also juggled track and field since sixth grade and runs distance for South’s girls team. Though she plays a defensive position on the pitch, she’s proven how capable she is on offense and how impactful she can be.
“I feel like I do tend to take it up a lot and I’ve taught my back line, whoever’s playing with me, to push up to the 50 just to keep the whole other team composed in a tight space,” Grecsek said. “I think that helps a lot. But just moving forward, sometimes I’ll take the ball up just to our attackers and I’ll help with those set pieces and moving forward and just anything I can to contribute to the top, I do. Any chance I have, I take it.”
