Stephanie Hamilton is assembling quite a résumé.
The Bellarmine Prep forward/midfielder is a four-time all-district soccer player who contributed 21 goals and 12 assists as a senior while leading the Lions to a spot in the Class 4A state semifinals Friday.
She also has been named The News Tribune’s All-Area girls soccer player of the year.
“She just brings such a fresh quality to our team,” Lions coach Joe Waters said. “She’s just a terrific teammate with great enthusiasm and is very, very popular with her teammates. … She works very hard. She tries to do everything that you ask her to do in the game. She gets more frustrated with herself than any of us do. She’s just so hard on herself, but she deserves every honor that she gets because she really is something special.”
However, Hamilton’s résumé hasn’t yet drawn a scholarship offer to continue playing the sport she loves at the next level.
“I’ve been emailing (colleges),” she said. “Someone will hopefully want me. … I don’t know if it’s my height – I’m only 5-2. But hopefully something will come.”
A quick look at the University of Washington women’s soccer roster shows the average player height to be a little over 5-foot-7, with the shortest player standing 5-4. But at Seattle University there are four players Hamilton’s height or shorter. At Gonzaga there are two.
“I’m absolutely dumbfounded by the fact that this great player – who is so effective and could play so many positions – (has no offers),” Waters said. “She’s not just a goal scorer, but she’s good in the box, she’s good outside the box, she scores inside the box, she scores outside it. She can beat people, she can cross the ball, she can pass it – all the things that you’re looking for in a player. The only thing that she’s not is 5-10 and wins the ball in the air – but she’s not afraid to go for headers.”
While still uncertain about her college destination, Hamilton is hopeful that she can end her high school career by celebrating a state championship: first by getting past rival Gig Harbor at 8 p.m. Friday at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup, and then the Skyline-Tahoma winner in the championship match at 4 p.m. Saturday, again at Sparks.
“That would be so cool,” she said. “I don’t want to jinx anything, but we have been practicing so hard. At the beginning of the year, we were a little bit shaky, but I think that helped us in the end because we got together and started working even harder, realizing how hard you have to play to get to the finals and everything. And now that we’re here, we can’t really fix any of our skills. It’s just really the mental aspect of it.”
Hamilton said this will not be her last weekend as a soccer player – even if no scholarship offer comes.
“I play it just to have fun and everything,” she said. “I can only hope to play in college – because that would be amazing – and keep playing my soccer career as long as it can go. If I don’t get a scholarship I’ll try and walk on. And if for some reason that doesn’t work, then I’ll be doing intramural or something like that just because I love playing.”
Don Ruiz: 253-597-8808 don.ruiz@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune/com/preps
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