Soccer, Football
Favorite athlete: Kevin De Bruyne
Favorite team: Manchester City FC
Favorite memory competing in sports: Travelling to Ireland to play in a soccer tournament.
Most embarrassing thing that has happened while competing in sports: Missing a penalty kick in the tournament in Ireland (but we still won).
Music on my mobile device: I try not to limit myself to one genre.
Future plans: Help people who can’t help themselves.
Favorite motto: “Progress not Perfection”
One goal before turning 30: Be working towards my Ph.D.
Something people don’t know about me: My twin sister Zoe is also a soccer captain.
By Mary Jane Souder
Roll back the calendar to Oct. 12, 2018.
The moment was big, probably too big for a soccer-player-turned-kicker just two months earlier. That, however, didn’t prevent coach Ryan Nase - with kicker Justin Grady sidelined with an injury – from giving junior Drew Moreland the nod to kick the extra point after Cheltenham broke a scoreless tie in the Panthers’ Senior Night game against Hatboro-Horsham.
“I was playing on the jayvee team last year – they hadn’t really had a kicker until I played,” said Moreland, who was being groomed to replace Grady, a first team all-league kicker. “I was doing that to get myself acclimated. I thought it was really fun.”
Then came the game against the Hatters when he was pressed into emergency duty.
“I was comfortable in the jayvee games, but being thrust into a situation like that with all that responsibility on my shoulders was hard, and I couldn’t perform - (the kick) was short and wide,” Moreland said of his extra point attempt. “It was really hard because we only lost by one (7-6) in the game, but everyone on the team was helping me and telling me to keep my head up and that everything was fine.”
Fast forward to Moreland’s senior year, and everything is even better than fine. The senior kicker has a school record 64 points heading into Friday night’s PIAA 6A state title game against Archbishop Wood.
Listening to Nase tell it – Moreland’s response to a shaky debut tells you all you need to know about the Cheltenham senior.
“Justin Grady is going to go down as one of the best kickers to ever kick, not only at Cheltenham but maybe in the Suburban One besides the Kevin Kellys of the world,” Nase said. “Drew got absolutely thrown into the fire, showing up on a Friday and not knowing he was going to have to kick.
“He misses the extra point, and we lose 7-6 to Hatboro-Horsham. It was one of our really bad losses that should have never happened. Obviously, everybody takes the easy way out and blames the kicker because we lost by a point, but we fumbled three times inside the five.
“It should never have been a one-point game to start with, but that being your only varsity football experience from last year – to come back and be as solid as he is this year is a real testament to the type of mental toughness that he has. Plus there’s the added pressure of just replacing Justin Grady in general, and it never really fazed him.”
That’s not to say there haven’t been nerveracking moments – there have been. Topping the list might well have been Cheltenham’s heartstopping 43-42 win over Academy Park in the District One 5A title when every point loomed large.
“The other was our homecoming game against Plymouth Whitemarsh,” Moreland said. “We won 28-24, and if I had missed one extra point, they could have tied it with a field goal, so they had to go for a touchdown at the end, and we stopped them at the goal line. It was really crazy.”
“You look at the last couple of weeks – you’re back and forth, point for point,” Nase said. “You win the district championship by one point. We say almost every time he kicks the ball – every point matters, and it’s true. That’s a lot of pressure to put on him.”
******
Moreland – an honors student who is active in school life - didn’t really need to add one more thing to his schedule when Cheltenham soccer coach Bill Tonkin asked if he had an interest in kicking for the football team last year.
“The football coach said, “I need a junior to replace Justin Grady. Do you have anybody?’” Tonkin recalled. “Drew came to mind immediately just because he’s a great kid, and I knew he could handle both sports. He had a decent leg, so he can kick the ball pretty decent.”
Moreland, who had watched his soccer teammate excel on the football field, never considered the possibility that he might follow in Grady’s footsteps.
“I thought the idea of it was cool, but I could never see myself doing it,” said Moreland. “I’m not the biggest or strongest kid on the football team.
“I’m one of the shortest and lightest (5-8, 150), and Justin was really tall and could kick the ball for miles. I kind of felt I couldn’t hold a candle to him.”
“Drew was kind of on the fence about it at first,” said Tonkin. “I said, ‘Try it, see if you like, it.’
“I kicked in high school too, and I went to one of the first practices – it was Drew, his dad and me, and we were just kicking. I tried to give him a few pointers, and one of the football coaches came over and helped. It was good.”
Tonkin even challenged Moreland to a kick-off.
“I won – he still owes me Chick-fil-A for that,” the Panthers’ soccer coach said with a laugh. “He’s a great kid. He works so hard to be good at everything. He’s very competitive, and he just worked his butt off.”
Moreland admits he felt a bit out of place when he put on the pads for the first time.
“It was kind of jarring at first because soccer is almost completely a team sport, and going from that to just having one job and the play relying almost completely on me when I go out to kick is so different,” Moreland said. “At the end of my sophomore year I was probably 5-5 at the most and super skinny. Being surrounded by all those guys who were so much bigger and stronger than me was kind of intimidating.”
After kicking for the jayvee last year, Moreland was elevated to the varsity this year.
“Over the summer, our coach let me borrow a bunch of the footballs, so I could come to the school a couple times a week and just keep practicing kicking so I kept my leg strong and I stayed healthy,” Moreland said.
Moreland’s first extra point attempt in the Panthers’ season opener this fall was a rerun of his kick against the Hatters as a junior – it was short and wide.
“I got a little nervous, but I got it back and actually kicked a field goal that game,” Moreland said. “On the football team, everyone is trying to lift me up. It’s like a family, and I just feel a part of the family.”
Moreland has developed a special rapport with his holder, senior captain Zach Gaffin.
“He is really, really good and does a really good job of keeping my head in it and always gives me positive messages before and after I kick, so it really helps,” he said. “I just try to keep everything consistent. I always take the same amount of steps, and I try and tune out the crowd and breathe a lot before I kick.”
******
Soccer has been a family affair for Moreland, who – along with twin sister Zoe – has been playing soccer for as long as he can remember.
He has been playing travel since U10 for Hunter, Cheltenham and Penn Alliance. Both twins are four-year varsity players – Drew was the lone freshman on varsity, and both were captains of their respective squads as seniors.
The Panthers – who battled injuries – won just four games this fall.
“I just tried my best to keep everyone in it and not get dissuaded by us losing and just to finish the season as strong as we could,” Moreland said.
“He was a quiet leader,” Tonkin said. “He got fired up at times and tried to be vocal. He led the team very positively. He tried to keep everybody together. He was a good leader.”
Moreland – whose favorite position is left wing - played wherever he was needed on the field.
“He was my go-to guy,” Tonkin said. “I need someone to play here because someone is hurt – okay, Drew, go play here. Drew go play there, and he was always ‘All right, no problem.’ Whatever the team needed, Drew did.”
In preparation for Friday games, Moreland practiced with the special teams on Thursdays.
“He missed some soccer practices to go to football, which I didn’t have a problem with,” Tonkin said. “He worked his butt off to do what he’s doing now.
“He has a place with me and my team coaching, whatever he wants to come back and help do. I love that kid.”
“I owe my football experience to coach Tonkin,” Moreland said. “He kicked in high school while playing soccer too, so he’s been very understanding.”
******
Sports are just one piece – albeit an important one - of Moreland’s life, and he places a high value on academics as well. His course load is filled with AP and honors classes, and he carries a weighted 4.68 GPA.
Moreland is a member of the National Honor Society and the Black Scholars Program, an organization for higher achieving African-American students. He is a member of the robotics team, and he also plays the cello and has been a member of the select chamber orchestra since he was a freshman. He recently stopped taking private cello lessons.
In preparation for his final soccer season, he ran indoor and outdoor track last year.
“He’s just a kid that does everything right,” Nase said.
Moreland has applied to Georgia Tech, Pitt, Stevens Institute of Technology, Northeastern, Michigan, Pace Western, UMBC and Drexel. He plans to major in biomedical engineering with an interest in doing research.
“I feel like being able to do research would give me a chance to help people, which is something I really want to do,” Moreland said.
He has not ruled out the possibility of kicking in college.
“I never would have even thought of playing for a football team in the first place, but since I’ve been given this opportunity, it’s just a part of my life now,” Moreland said.
On Friday, Moreland and his teammates will face perennial state powerhouse Archbishop Wood in the state title game at Hershey. Whatever the outcome, it’s been quite a ride.
“It’s really insane going from being completely a soccer player to kicking for one year and then being the starter and getting to the state final,” Moreland said. “Besides something to do on a Friday night, I’ve become a part of something bigger than myself, much bigger, which is just insane.”
All SuburbanOneSports.com articles (or portion of articles) can be turned into keepsakes. For information, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/article/content/photo-collages-available-purchase-0015296
