Never underestimate the value of a good keeper. The Souderton boys’ and Pennridge girls’ squads are just two teams whose goalkeepers have played prominent roles in their success.
Ashley Schoellkopf remembers her first game as the starting goalkeeper for the Pennridge girls soccer team.
More specifically, she remembers her pregame ritual.
"I was laying down on the ground trying to calm myself with breathing techniques," Schoellkopf said with a laugh. "It was so bad. I was so nervous."
It's not hard to understand why. Schoellkopf, then a sophomore, was replacing four-year starting goalkeeper Shannon Zickler between the pipes for Pennridge. And while she may have been the heir apparent at the position, there were more than a few question marks concerning her ability to adapt to the varsity level.
"Her freshman year when she was the JV goalkeeper, I really thought she was miles behind Shannon Zickler," said Pennridge coach Jorge Rodriguez. "As a freshman, Ashley wasn't anywhere near her level.
"That entire summer, and for a lot longer, she trained an incredible amount with (longtime former Pennridge coach) Kim Gerhardt. The amount of time she put into it, going into her sophomore year she was a completely different person. Ashley was really the only goalkeeper we had in the program that we knew was going to be our varsity goalkeeper. I think she took that challenge personally. To find that character in a teenager is very rare."
For Schoellkopf, that ambition to improve came from a very simple place -- the desire not to disappoint her teammates.
"I realized I had big shoes to fill and I didn't want to let the team down, especially being an underclassman," she said. "I didn't want to start off badly with the team."
And though those first few games brought about plenty of butterflies in the stomach, Schoellkopf adjusted quite well. In her first year in the cage, the Rams rolled to a 17-5-1 overall record and a Continental League title. As a junior, Schoellkopf backstopped the team to a share of the league crown and a 20-4-1 overall record that included a district final appearance. As a senior, she's been exemplary. In fact, during the Rams' current 10-game win streak, Schoellkopf has posted nine shutouts (12 overall this season) and has allowed just a single goal.
"Her determination to be the best goalkeeper that she can possibly be for her team is what sets her apart from everybody else," Rodriguez said. "She's so driven. She's been an incredible asset to the program.
"Every time I talk to her, it seems like she's taking it upon herself to add a new challenge. She went from JV to varsity to being a great goalie, to being a captain. Now her sights are on winning a state title, and she's been very, very focused on that since the preseason."
Schoellkopf is just enjoying the ride.
"It's so exciting to see how well the team is doing right now," she said. "It's my senior year, I want to go as far as we can. For me, I feel like we've all worked so hard together that we've earned this and we're finally getting our reward. But we still have to work for it. We're taking one game at a time and trying to get there."
Schoellkopf said she believes her greatest leaps in her game have been in her ability to defend breakaways, and in improving her communication.
The latter, in fact, is something she approached her coach about earlier in the season.
"Ashley is not the most vocal person in general," Rodriguez said. "When she was named captain, that was one of the first things she asked, how can she do a better job of communicating and being a captain. Now I see her as being one of the most vocal people on the field."
She has also improved her mental approach to the game, and that's helped her confidence soar.
"Win or lose, shutout or not, if she didn't quite make the proper saves, she's very tough on herself," Rodriguez said. "There have been a lot of times I wanted to yell at her for a mistake that she's made, but she beats me to it. She's that kind of a player. She's hard on herself, but that earns her the respect of her teammates."
For Schoellkopf, it all goes back to the first time she stepped between the pipes many years ago. She felt she had to earn her playing time and had to be the best player she could be in order to do so. Even as a high school senior, no matter how many shutouts she posts, no matter how many accolades she collects, she's still striving for perfection.
"When I was younger, I was a field player," she said. "Our coach asked us who wanted to go in goal in a tournament and I raised my hand. I had to fight for a spot there, and then coming in as the sophomore being the starting varsity keeper, I always had that passion and I guess it just stuck with me to fight to be the best. And I'm still trying."
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Tyler Afflerbach – known simply as ‘Aff to his teammates – established that he was something special when he stonewalled Council Rock North in the opening round of the district tournament last year.
“He singlehandedly beat Council Rock North,” Souderton coach Tom Quintois said. “We went in as the 26 seed, took them to penalty strokes, and he was unbelievable in that game.”
Unbelievable hardly covers it. Afflerbach recorded 14 saves in a stellar individual performance – which included a stop of a penalty kick in regulation. The two teams battled to a 0-0 tie after 110 minutes that included the Big Red playing down a player for the final 42 minutes. Souderton won it 5-3 in penalty kicks, sending seventh-seeded Rock North home for the season.
“That was definitely one of my greatest memories, and I think my teammates would agree with me on that one,” Afflerbach said of the win over Rock North.
Afflerbach and his teammates are once again leaving their mark in the postseason, a position it didn’t look as though they’d find themselves in when they staggered out of the gate to a 3-4-1 mark. The Indians regrouped to go 6-1-3 in their final 10 games, finishing fifth in the tough Continental Conference with a 5-5-4 mark and a 9-5-4 mark overall.
The 23rd-seeded Indians proved they earned their district berth with a win over American Conference champion Wissahickon – the tournament’s 10th seed – in the opening round. They followed that with a 1-0 win over Kennett.
“Quintois harped on us late in the season – ‘Just get in, just get in the playoffs, guys. We’re going to sneak in, and we’re going to do big things,’” Afflerbach said. “It’s just really fun, and it’s a really unique atmosphere at our practices and at the games.”
Afflerbach is a veteran of the pressure that goes hand in hand with the playoffs. He was thrown into the heat of battle as a freshman
“He played in the Downingtown West (district) semifinal game when he was a freshman,” Quintois said. “You’re talking about a 5-5 kid, maybe he’s 100 pounds at that time in his life.”
Afflerbach – who started Souderton’s third place district game against Central Bucks East that year as well - admits it was intimidating.
“Whenever our keeper would go down or appear to get hurt, Quintois would say, ‘Aff, go get your stuff on,’ and honestly, I would be like peeing my pants,” Souderton’s junior keeper said with a laugh. “It was the scariest thing ever, especially since I was playing with a team that had a core of senior guys, and they did not want to lose. There was a lot of pressure.”
The days of being scared are nothing but a distant memory to Afflerbach, a junior captain who is now close to six feet tall.
“He’s real long – he’s built like a goalkeeper,” Quintois said. “He’s getting bigger, and he’s getting better. He improves all the time because he’s the most coachable guy on our team, the hardest working guy on our team.
“He’s a real grounded kid and extremely smart both on the field and in the classroom. He’s just a great leader and captain. He’s hard working and dedicated. He’s just a special kid.”
Quintois has had his share of standout goalkeepers over the years, but the junior keeper according to the Souderton coach, is in a class of his own.
“He’s the best, the best,” said Quintois. “He’s different.”
What makes Afflerbach so good?
“He reads the game, and he’s intercepting things before they become dangerous,” Quintois said. “He’s really proactive, and he organizes the defense really well.
“He understands how we’re playing defensively from a strategic perspective, and he’s coaching them back there because he sees things coming before they materialize. In addition, he’s a really good shot stopper. He anticipates real well what balls are coming, he plays angles real well, and he’s athletic as all get out.
“We’re still a really young team, and a lot of people test us in the air, and he just gobbles it up. We’re not terrified of long throw-ins when you know you have somebody back there who can go and get it.”
Afflerbach - who wears all orange like his idol, U.S. keeper Tim Howard - is enjoying every minute of this year’s special postseason run with his Indian squad.
“It’s just surreal, it’s almost an unreal feeling,” he said. “Nobody ever expected us to do this, but we knew we could all along.”
It certainly hasn’t hurt that the Indians have had ‘Aff’ in goal.
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