Choices abound for two-sport star
Cliff Foster believes he is one of the most fortunate high school basketball coaches in the WPIAL — that's what happens when your point guard is the multi-talented Amanda Kalin.
Kalin, who will be a junior when the next school year begins at Pine-Richland High School, was a thirdteam all-state selection in Class AAAA, averaging 20.8 points per game. But, as the advertising jingle says, there's more. She also scored 19 goals for the Rams’ girls soccer team that finished second in Section 2-AAA with a record of 9-3 and finished with an overall record of 15-4.
Those accomplishments have earned her the Post-Gazette’s North Xtra Female High School Athlete of the Year for the 2014-15 school year.
“She's only going to be a junior and she works harder than any other kid I’ve met in both sports,” Foster said. “When her friends are out on Friday night, she's going to [soccer] goalie clinics or meeting with one of our coaches to shoot baskets. She puts more time into each sport than some kids put into one sport.”
Playing two sports has been a normal experience for Kalin.
“I’ve liked both of them, and I’ve played both of them since I was young,” said Kalin, who last weekend returned from a team basketball camp at West Virginia University where she and her Pine-Richland teammates went 10-0 in a tournament that featured 45 teams. “I always wanted to do both.”
She has a solid reputation in basketball and soccer, and that’s drawn attention from college recruiters in both sports.
Initially, Kalin made a verbal commitment for soccer to Rutgers of the Big Ten Conference. But she's wavered in that decision.
“I committed really early,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of the opportunities that I could have and get noticed by colleges for basketball. I like basketball better. I’m verbally committed [to Rutgers], but I really want to play basketball in college. I have not decommitted, but I’m keeping my options open.”
With an eye toward playing basketball in college, Kalin certainly will be a solid player, Foster believes.
“In both sports, she’s a winner,” he said. “She knows how to compete. We bump into some athletes in AAU and high school and you see talent all the time that can be shaped and formed. But a lot of kids don’t know how to compete and how to win.
“Amanda possesses some of those innate attributes that a lot of kids don’t have. We couldn’t teach her that. She was blessed to be born with that and maximize those abilities.”
Her soccer coach at Pine-Richland, Jody Chmielewski, sees those strengths, too.
“She’s led us in scoring the past two years as a forward, but she’s projected to play goalie in college,” Chmielewski said. “She’s one of those throwback athletes. This season, we'll have that option because our goalkeeper graduated. She could play goalkeeper or in the field as a striker. Her abilities give
us a lot of flexibility. She’s a phenomenal athlete and can play any position on the field.”
With two years of high school competition remaining, competing in the WPIAL’s highest division in both sports, Foster sees great things in store for Kalin.
“She’s our point guard and our superstar,” he said. “She’ll have a supporting staff that’s extremely talented. At this [West Virginia] tournament, we went 10-0 and were 21-6 last year. We lost one player, but we have a couple of players to replace her.
”We have a mature team. All of her teammates started with her as freshmen, and they’re now juniors. They are together for the next two years. We’re just going to roll the ball out, play as hard as we can and make some awesome things happen.“
With that scenario happening in one sport, that would be tremendous for Pine-Richland athletics. But with Kalin starring in soccer, too, great things appear to be in store for Rams athletics in those two sports for the next two years.