It should come as no surprise that the Capital-Gazette Newspapers' girls soccer Player of the Year is Archbishop Spalding High School senior center midfielder Christine Nairn. With all due respect to the other star players in the area, Nairn is in a class of her own.
(See the All-County Girls Soccer Team.)
An IAAM A Conference All-Star, Nairn led the Cavaliers to an 18-2-1 record and a berth in the A Conference semifinals. She also led her team in goals (27) and assists (13) and had eight multi-goal games, including three hat tricks.
"From a personal standpoint, she's a great kid," Spalding coach Bob Dieterle said. "From a soccer standpoint, she's got a great aptitude for the game. She plays very hard, has excellent skills, reads the field very well and plays one, two, sometimes three plays ahead of most players on the field."
Some highlights this season include a four-goal effort in a win over Severn on Sept. 28 and three goals in a 15-minute span against Glenelg, the Class 1A state champion, on Sept. 11.
Coach of the Year |
BOB DIETERLE Dieterle has steadily built Archbishop Spalding into a state powerhouse during his six-year tenure. The Cavaliers compiled an 18-2-1 record this season and were ranked No. 1 in the Capital-Gazette Newspapers’ Top 5 from start to finish. The Cavaliers outscored opponents 78-6. “It was a special season for us. We put together a very challenging schedule with a lot of tough non-league games on the road and to come away with the record we did was truly fantastic,” Dieterle said. Spalding came up short of an MIAA A Conference title, placing second in the regular season then falling in the tournament semifinals. “I think the real value of this season was the legacy these players, especially the seniors, left for the program. This group of players has set the bar very high,” Dieterle said. Spalding went 19-0-2 and captured the conference championship in 2006. |
"She's not just a scorer, but she's a playmaker and she makes the people around her better," Dieterle said.
In her four years at Spalding, Nairn etched herself as one of the top up-and-coming players in the country. She's been named to numerous national all-star teams, and as a member of the Under-17 National Team that competed in Germany and England this past summer, she scored a goal in a 3-0 win over Denmark's Under-19 squad.
Throughout her four-year varsity career she amassed 70 goals and 37 assists, which, according to Dieterle, makes her Spalding's all-time leading scorer.
Those numbers were achieved despite constantly being double- and triple-teamed by the opposition and also despite Nairn being pulled from games either before or during the second half, due to Spalding racing out to large leads.
"It's been a great four years, and it's gone by faster than I could've even imagined," Nairn said. "It's been the best four years of my life."
Nairn has played her way to a scholarship at Penn State University, and she will star for the Nittany Lions, who are ranked sixth in the country by the NSCAA, next fall.
"I think she's going to do just as well in college," Dieterle said. "She's risen to the challenge everywhere she's gone."
Nairn attributes a lot of her success to her older brothers, T.J, 22, and Kevin, 19.
"Growing up, I always played with my older brothers," Nairn said. "They pushed me around and made me look stupid, so it taught me how to play quicker and faster and stronger on the ball. They were definitely a huge influence on my soccer career."
Last season, Nairn helped lead Spalding to the IAAM A Conference championship, a moment that she happily points to as a turning point in her career.
She said that she hopes to continue playing with the National Team while at Penn State, and her lofty goals also include winning a gold medal at the Olympics and being among the starting 11 for the United State at the World Cup.
"She was a pleasure to coach," Dieterle said. "She's a really down-to-earth, level-headed teenager, and she hasn't let success get to her head. She's the same person she was when she first came here."
Yet now she is a far better player, and one with a great future on the horizon.
