Soccer
Favorite athlete: Kasper Schmeichel
Favorite team: Chelsea FC Women
Favorite memory competing in sports: Competing at ECNL National Playoffs in 2021 and saving a penalty kick in a shootout to advance to semifinals.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I was 12, I was backpedaling towards my goal after my team had scored and the other team was setting up for the tap. I stepped on my own shoelace, tripped, and fell backwards. I'm still not sure if anyone saw it.
Music on playlist: Yeat, Migos, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ozzy Osbourne, and Greta van Fleet
Future plans: Go to college to play soccer and study Finance, possibly play pro soccer, then become an author when I'm ready to have a family.
Words to live by: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1
One goal before turning 30: Play professional soccer.
One thing people don't know about me: I always write out specific "gameday intentions" for myself a few hours before the game, and I read them back before I get out of the car or get off the bus. It helps me go into the game with very specific goals in mind, and I play with these intentions in the back of my mind.
By Andrew Robinson
A moment three years ago changed Emily Ehresmann's outlook.
After almost losing her soccer career, ,the Southampton resident decided she was going to make the most of every opportunity the game presented her. She didn't quite expect it would lead to where she is this fall as the starting goalkeeper for William Tennent's girls' soccer team in her first year playing with the program, but it's been a perfect unison for all sides.
Ehresmann has stepped way out of her comfort zone this fall and she's loving every minute of it.
"It's incredible to see us grow week by week and game by game," Ehresmann said. "Our passes get more creative, we're doing all this intricate give-and-goes up top and through the midfield and it's incredible to see everyone working together because we all love each other and have a family mentality.
"That's what I love about this team, I love the girls so much and that makes us fight for each other without hesitation."
See, while Ehresmann plays for the Panthers and dons a bright green William Tennent goalkeeper kit, she doesn't actually attend the school. She's lived in the Centennial School District her whole life, but Ehresmann has been homeschooled since she began fourth grade.
Due to a serious knee injury when she was 14 and a promising club soccer career, she'd just never explored playing for the high school's team until this past summer. Just by growing up in Southampton and being a talented player, she knew a few of the girls who played at Tennent, and this summer they came to her with news there was an opening at the goalkeeper position.
Tennent senior Theresa Ditri, the keystone of the team's rigid defense, brought the subject of playing for the high school up, and Ehresmann knew it was an opportunity she'd regret passing on.
Ehresmann, who stands about 5-foot-8 and brings plenty of athleticism between the posts, decided to give it a try, and once Ditri told the Tennent coaches about this talented keeper she knew, the invitation was open. While goalkeepers are by nature courageous, throwing themselves headlong into any challenge to keep a ball out of their net, this was different.
Joining the Panthers for their summer league and team workouts, Ehresmann admitted to feeling some trepidation.
"I was so nervous at first, and I think they picked up on that," Ehresmann said. "I entered it very humbly, not cocky at all like I'm going to come in and do this or that but more of a 'hi, I'm here to do my best' and try out like anyone else. Once I made the team, I definitely got more confident in talking to everyone and taking a lead once we were on the field.
"I love the hometown feel of this team at Tennent, they're all from around here and some even live in my neighborhood. My club team, everyone is hours away from training, and when you have girls coming from four states, we really don't hang out outside of training. I feel like the chemistry at Tennent, we just work together effortlessly."
Tennent coach Elise Jara didn't know much about Ehresmann other than what she'd heard from Ditri and the other players who knew the keeper. It didn't take long for the Panthers head coach to see what she had.
"She played in one of our games, and myself and one of my assistants - we just looked at each other like 'oh my gosh, we need her to play for us,'" Jara said. "I spoke to her and her parents after the game, she told me she was homeschooled and playing for a club team in Delaware. We just told her we wanted to do anything we could to make it easy, but she really did just fit right in with the girls."
*****
Goalkeeping is in Ehresmann's genes. Her dad Marc played the position for 15 years, only giving it up in high school to begin working an apprenticeship for what became his eventual career as a floor-layer.
When Emily started playing at age four, Marc did not want her to follow in his footsteps.
"It's funny, he always encouraged me to play on the field so I didn't get trapped in goal, but I always felt like it was where I belonged," Ehresmann said. "The more I played in goal, the more I grew to love it.
"There's just something so instinctual about it, you have to do crazy things with your body and throw everything you have just to keep the ball out, and I love the adrenaline I get every game."
Most keepers have a similar origin story. Because they're tall and usually because nobody else wants to do it, one of their first intramural or youth team coaches sticks them between the woodwork and tells them to keep the ball from going over the painted line on the grass.
Ehresmann wishes she had a different tale to tell, but it was a very familiar refrain that eventually put her in the same place her father once stood.
"I didn't start playing goalkeeper full-time until I was 11, but I first jumped in net when I was eight and I had the typical story, I got thrown in during an intramural game when we didn't have anyone else," Ehresmann said. "They strapped a pair of gloves on me, put a little orange pinnie on me and I jumped in and did my best.
"I had some natural instincts for it, I wasn't the best, but I made some saves and it was fun for me so I wanted to keep jumping back in."
Marc Ehresmann has become his daughter's unofficially official goalkeeping mentor, usually breaking down the film that Emily's mom Priscilla dutifully records of all her games. It brings the family together, all of them contributing one corner to the triangle.
"It's been cool to achieve new heights from what he couldn't, and he's worked his tail off to provide everything for me to have these opportunities. He critiques every little thing about my game, and it's only made me stronger, and it's mostly encouragement these days," Ehresmann said. "My parents have played a huge role. My mother does all the film for me ,and she keeps me grounded, especially in the recruiting process, she always tells me 'it's going to fall and you're going to go to the school of your dreams.'"
*****
Ehresmann's club experience has stretched far and wide. She started small and local, like many players do, but soon grew to bigger clubs that garnered more exposure, spending a few years with powerhouse FC Delco before most recently landing with Sporting Delaware Soccer Club's ECNL side based in Wilmington, DE.
With at least two hours worth of round-trip travel for training with her club team, it was definitely an involved undertaking for Ehresmann. Her team also featured players from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and of course Delaware, so even with the travel and tournament schedule, the team would inevitably split up when those dates ended.
That's not the case with the Panthers. While she's not in the high school building with her teammates on a daily basis, Ehresmann has found something with Tennent she's never experienced before.
The last thing she wanted anyone to think was that she was some hotshot, big-time keeper coming in to steal someone's spot. In those first few sessions with Tennent over the summer, while her play was turning heads, Ehresmann kept a low profile and made a cognizant effort to really get to know her new teammates.
Whether it was commenting on the summer heat or the difficulty of a drill, the universal language of all athletes, Ehresmann built a rapport in short order. Her fellow seniors took to her immediately, and she quickly shared a kindred feeling with the juniors and underclassmen, spending a lot of time with the team outside their summer schedule, being added to group chats and the entire process of becoming a true teammate.
"I made sure to make my rounds at practice, try to talk to everyone, just make little comments like 'it's so hot out here,' or 'that drill was really hard,' and they would reciprocate that energy and it became like one big sisterhood," Ehresmann said. "I feel like I'm already there with them all the time because they've been so inclusive. I've never felt like an outlier or that I've had to fight to join their circle."
Ehresmann's humble approach also quickly earned the respect of the coaches. This was a player who had only known high-level club competition willingly running out the team's rigorous fitness standards, opening herself up to a brand new way of playing the sport and eagerly taking any feedback the Tennent coaches had for her.
"She just seemed very grateful to be there and to be given the chance to play," Jara said. "It is her senior year, she has several schools interested in her, so I think this was for fun, a chance to do something maybe ordinary.
"The girls accepted her right away and she wasn't the type to come in a try to be a standout, she's been a tremendous help to us and we're very grateful that she came out and that nobody else saw her and snatched her up."
In many ways, this fall has been an eye-opening experience. With her club teams, Ehresmann always split time with another keeper and never got to play more than a half or get involved as an outlet or release playing out of the back.
Playing a full 80-minute high school game was a big accomplishment for Ehresmann, and she's been able to do things with her feet or playing off her line that no club had ever asked of her. For as much as she's given Tennent, the keeper feels like she's getting as much back.
"I play a very scrappy game right now, and it's incredible to see the things that I'm able to do out there," Ehresmann said. "I take command of my back line and they listen so well, I think it's changed the trajectory of at least the defense. I feel like I'm quarterbacking it and taking a strong sense of leadership and they've just responded so well to that so I'm grateful for their acceptance of me.
"Their determination on and off the field has inspired me to push myself and do things that I didn't know I was capable of doing."
While Jara emphasized how open Ehresmann has been to taking any observations or suggestions from her staff, there's also no denying the senior is just a gifted athlete. Ehresmann was dazzling in Tennent's season-opening win against Springfield Township, and her play was integral in the Panthers' shutout win over a skilled Upper Moreland offense.
Tennent has yet to concede a goal this season and while Ehresmann won't take sole credit for it, she's made more than a few plays that haven't been commonly seen.
"It's just the way she comes off the line," Jara said. "I remember a couple corner kicks where she came off her line to get a touch or even go get the ball. Her vertical movement is unbelievable, there was one ball going to the upper 90 where she full-extended and got a touch on it."
*****
Goalkeepers stand out by their uniform not matching any of their teammates and often not reflecting any of their team's colors. Ehresmann stands out even beyond that due to another piece of equipment she wears.
Every game, the goalkeeper dons a pair of knee pads as her signature look, a residual habit stemming from a devastating injury that nearly forced her to retire from playing. It was that injury that was part of the reason Ehresmann waited until this year to give high school soccer a try, her body needing to build itself back up.
"It was summer of 2020 and we'd just come back to normal training from the COVID lockdowns, and I think my body hadn't quite acclimated to it. I was at practice one night, making a save and my cleat slipped out from under me," Ehresmann said. "I dislocated my kneecap which led to some pretty bad ligament damage on the inside of my knee, I had to have surgery, so I was out for a total of seven months."
Ehresmann called coming back from the injury the most difficult thing she's ever had to do mentally. From the surgery in August of 2020 to February of 2021, she didn't play at all, then had to go through a grueling recovery and rehabilitation process.
"That time away from the field was one of the lowest points of my life," Ehresmann said. "It was hard for me to wrap my head around that I might not play again. We decided I could play again in December, but it was all those months of wondering if I could even return to the field at all and missing it so much."
It wasn't an easy process, and it wasn't a smooth process. There were setbacks, some of which necessitated the extra protection for her knees, but the entire ordeal also sparked an awakening that in a way helped lead her to the Panthers.
"Most keepers don't wear that kind of gear, so it makes me stand out, I'm not sure if it's in a positive or a negative way," Ehresmann said. "Coming back from it changed my mentality. Before my injury, I was kind of dreading practice, all these little complaints but after that and all the way through now, my mentality is to enjoy every second.
"I don't want to have any regrets coming off the field anymore."
Ehresmann hopes to continue playing at the college level. She has quite a few Division II and III programs already extending offers, and she even has a few Division I programs interested with visits scheduled at La Salle and Campbell.
Away from soccer, Ehresmann said she's a little bit of a writer and she's planning to study finance in college, then likely get into real estate.
In the more immediate future, she's looking forward to the start of SOL crossover play when the SOL Freedom-leading Panthers will go up against the Liberty's teams including playoff regulars Abington and Hatboro-Horsham. She'll also be honored as part of the team's Senior Night proceedings later this fall, something the keeper already said she knows will be emotional despite only knowing most of her teammates for a few months.
"These kinds of things don't happen to us often, if at all. For somebody to just drop out of the sky like that..." Jara said. " She really is just so easy to work with and so willing to absorb any information you want to give her. She doesn't want to be the center of it, she just wants to do her job and add to the team.
"Her character equals her play."
In the standings, it's clear Emily Ehresmann has really helped William Tennent's girls' soccer team. Spend about a minute talking to the senior goalkeeper and it becomes clear that William Tennent's girls' soccer team has really helped Emily Ehresmann by giving her an incomparable experience.
"I just love them so much," Ehresmann said. "I'm so grateful to them for welcoming me, especially the other seniors in their last year, they brought me into their circle with open arms.
"They seem to like me, and I like them, it's been an incredible experience and I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to play for William Tennent this year."
