EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a new weekly feature to recognize local high school athletes. One student-athlete will be selected each week by The Republican-Herald sports staff based on the performance from the previous week. The Athlete of the Week feature will appear each week in Tuesday’s edition. The football player of the week will appear in Football Friday.
Name: Rileigh Evitts
High School: Schuylkill Haven Area High School
Grade: Senior
Sport: Girls’ soccer
Accomplishments: Evitts scored three goals in Saturday’s 6-0 win over Jim Thorpe, tying the Schuylkill League’s all-time mark for goals scored with 116. A Republican-Herald All-Area first-team selection a year ago, Evitts can break the record in tonight’s non-league game against Allentown Central Catholic.
Age: 17
Hometown: Auburn
Family: Father, Chris; Mother, Tara; brothers, Dawson and Gavin
Athletes I admire: Mia Hamm, Alex Morgan, Neymar
Favorite sports teams: FC Barcelona, Philadelphia Flyers, Philadelphia Eagles, U.S. national women’s soccer team
What age did you start playing soccer: 4
Club team(s): FC Revolution’s FC Blackhawks since age 9
Talk about becoming the Schuylkill League’s all-time leading goal scorer: “It’s really exciting. I started as a freshman, and I wasn’t planning on getting this far. I’m really grateful I got the opportunity to play on a great team like this. I started off trying to score 1-2 goals a game, and it all added up in the end.”
Talk about winning the 2013 District 11 Class A championship: “We played Pine Grove, and they had a really good team. They gave us a run, but in that game we all gave it our all and played our hearts out. We played well together, and it ended well in our favor. It’s amazing that we have two district championships under our belt.”
Individual goals for this season: “We lost a lot of our key players from last year and we’re trying to fill those spots. We’d like to make the Schuylkill League final, then the District 11 final, make it to the first round of states, then win the first round of states and hopefully go on past that.”
Post-graduation plans: Plans to attend and play soccer at either Philadelphia University or Misericordia to become a physician’s assistant. Has also received a few Division I offers to play soccer.