Soccer
Favorite athlete: Kelley O’Hara
Favorite team: USWNT
Favorite memory competing in sports: Going to Nationals my freshman year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I had to get stitches over my eye last year when I got cleated during a game, and the trainer wrapped my entire head in a huge white cloth.
Music on mobile device: Maroon 5, OneRepublic
Future plans: Move to a major city after graduate school and working in politics.
Words to live by: “The Warriors blew a 3-1 lead.”
One goal before turning 30: Get a scuba diver certification.
One thing people don’t know about me: I am a native New Mexican.
Morgan Small wanted absolutely nothing to do with the idea of playing goalkeeper.
It seems like an odd thing for the Quakertown senior - a three-year starting goalkeeper thrice selected to an All-SOL team for her prowess in the goal - to say. But a handful of years back, playing U10 soccer, her team needed a goalkeeper after the player they had in net wouldn't do it anymore.
So, Small stepped in but it was not love at first save.
"No one else on the team wanted to do it, I didn't even want to do it but the coaches put me in there and for about two years, I hated it," Small said. "I kind of got used to it after a while and it turned out to be a good fit for me."
While trying to avoid making a bad pun of the scenario, Small does not possess the prototypical size associated with the goalkeeping position. At 5-foot-6, the senior knows there are some balls that she'll have more trouble with than the taller players who populate goals across the SOL.
Her lack of height did not take anything away from her ability to keep the ball out of the net. In fact, at least in Quakertown coach Mike Koch's opinion, it made Small a better player.
"The kid's a competitor, when the lights are on and the game matters, that's what she lives to play for," Koch said. "Her technique makes up for some of that athleticism or that size she doesn't have. Her game awareness - a keeper with good game awareness always reduces the number of shots they face, they make themselves available as an outlet and give directions to players while their backs are turned to prevent things from turning into goal-scoring opportunities."
Off the field, Small describes herself as a bit of a nerd and immerses herself in politics and political media coverage. It's not surprising then that the senior is part of Quakertown's Model UN club and a member of the National Honor Society. She also used to play clarinet as part of Quakertown's choir band.
Small, who is planning to play in college and is currently weighing offers from two Division III programs, is hoping to pursue a career in journalism covering politics or as a political analyst. The senior chose colleges in Tufts and Clark that fit her needs academically.
"I take as much pride in soccer as I do in academics," Small said. "English is my favorite subject, followed closely by social studies and history. My mom's a lawyer, so I definitely didn't want to do that, but I started thinking what other things I could do where I could write and get my opinion out. I've always been very into social sciences and I'm taking a journalism class now."
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Small took over as the Panthers' starting keeper in her sophomore season while the team was playing in the SOL Continental conference. Going up against powerhouse programs like Pennridge, CB South and CB East along with the other always-tough foes in the conference, Quakertown finished 4-13-1 and 3-10-1 in the Continental.
However, the conference's coaches saw that the girl playing in goal for Quakertown was pretty good, and Small was voted to the conference's second team. Koch said that was a huge moment for the keeper, showing her she had the skill to stick as a starting varsity keeper and that she would have to grow into more of a leader to take the next step.
"It's always hard when you're a sophomore dealing with seniors and we hadn't had success but she got second team all-league, so that I think was a big start toward having confidence coming back as a junior," Koch said. "We had a good season and the further along we went, the more she emerged as a leader. This year, she took leadership from day one."
Quakertown jumped to the SOL American Conference for the 2016 season and the Panthers wasted little time getting comfortable in their new digs. With Small finding her voice in the back, the Panthers won the conference title with an 11-0-3 record in SOL play and finished the season 14-2-3 overall, qualifying for the district playoffs.
From a numerical sense, Small was able to showcase her abilities a little more and posted 12 shutouts during her junior season, equaling that number again as a senior. More than the saves, of which there were many and some of them spectacular, it was Small's leadership style that was the biggest factor in Quakertown's success.
"She set demands but I never saw her get on a defender after a mistake that cost us a goal," Koch said. "She took ownership of the whole thing first, and because of that ownership, the defenders fell in behind her. Melina Jagiello, who's our center back, is a sophomore, and she and Morgan just had an unbelievable relationship."
Small used her voice plenty, but she felt there was little value in being someone who constantly yelled at her defenders.
"As a leader, you need to be like that. You should take the blame even when it's not always your fault," Small said. "For me, what I've learned through seeing other goalkeepers and the most successful players, it's not good for you to yell at your defenders. Yeah, there are times where you can say 'you need to do this better' and vice-versa they can say the same to you, but I think if you yell at them all the time, you're not going to get a good performance out of them.
"To be fair, I think most people know when they make mistakes, so you don't need to say it. They know, especially when you're on defense because it's pretty obvious when you make a mistake because it usually leads to a goal."
One of the few people Small would yell at was junior midfielder Haley Pursel. The senior could do that because like her, Pursel is a driven competitor and knew anything Small was saying was meant to push her to play a little harder or make that little extra push the Panthers needed.
Small and Pursel were arguably Quakertown's two most important players and they had more than earned each other's respect after years of playing together and against each other in club. In an odd twist, Small also had Pursel to thank for her developmental track as a player.
That player on Small's U10 team who wanted out of net? It was Pursel.
"It was awesome being able to play with each other again the last three years," Small said. "We train with each other a lot in the offseason and we're really good friends outside of soccer. It makes the game easier playing with someone when you're such good friends and it helps us play well too."
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While Small had the routine saves down pat, she was also a master of the spectacular. It seemed like at least once every other game the keeper would somehow get a hand on a ball that Koch thought was destined for the back of the net.
Small's ability to bail her team out of those scenarios was not only beneficial on the scoreboard, but also in the minds of her teammates, knowing she had their backs even when it seemed improbable.
"There's been a lot of times where you don't think about it, it kind of just happens, it's usually a very quick thing," Small said. "I would tell myself going into every game that if you just need to make one or two big saves to keep the team in the game, then that's your job for this game. I had individual goals and team goals, and one of my individual goals was showing up ready every game."
Small credited Quakertown goalkeepers coach John Gingrich for helping her gain proficiency at the position, both directing her defenders, but also using her positioning and technique to take away any disadvantages her height may have created.
This fall, Small and her teammates were part of a game that will likely live in Quakertown lore for a very long time. As the No. 17 seed in the District I playoff bracket, the Panthers had to travel to No. 1 Pennridge, a team that had beaten them 5-0 earlier in the season.
"She had the team believing we were going to win," Koch said of his senior keeper. "She had found that right line for a goalkeeper, and it's a fine line, where they were bought in and believing her. When you have that player leading, I think they played a little bit harder and with a little more belief."
Small posted a shutout against one of the top teams in all of District I, and while her offense didn't post many chances, it didn't matter as the defensive effort took the match to penalty kicks. While Small admitted penalty shootouts are unpredictable, she made a stop on the first one, Pursel buried hers and the Panthers went on to oust the Rams in a huge upset.
"That was probably my favorite, it was a great way to end my senior season," Small said. "It was a huge team effort. Going into the game, I didn't think we were going to be an offensive threat but we played smart, took our chances when we had them and we defended very, very well that entire game. PKs, you never know what's going to happen as a goalkeeper, but we had practiced them all week and it worked out in our favor."
When she was a freshman, the team's seniors and captains welcomed Small and started preparing her and her classmates for when it was their time to take over. The Panthers keeper at the time, Erinne Finlayson, took Small under her wing.
This fall, Small found herself in the same position with her backup, freshman Morgan Sipprell, who will likely to step in as the starter next season.
"I think it's really important, especially when you're young and don't know the ropes of the game, I was really lucky as a freshman that she took me under her wing," Small said. "I wanted to do the same thing for Morgan and she's going to do really well next year. I saw it as kind of handing off the torch."
Teams go as the players that make them up go, but programs are built on the generations who came through in the past. Small took the torch, thrived in her era and now hands it off to the next wave. While she'll be in college next fall, she left more than enough to be remembered for.
"She's just really passionate about that game," Koch said. "It's one of the great things in coaching to see kids have success who are passionate about the game."
