Kiski Area grad Karly Keller ramps up toward helping Grove City women's soccer defend its PAC title

Karly Keller rose at 7:30 a.m., as she had done each day, to begin her workout, which, typically, would last about 90 minutes. Not unusual for a college athlete. There are few breaks when it comes to keeping in tune for the next season.

The difference for Keller, a Kiski Area graduate, was this is the routine she followed on her family vacation to Anna Maria Island in Florida.

Continuing preparations for the 2024 soccer season while on vacation might seem a bit over the top. But Keller and her returning Grove City teammates have a Presidents’ Athletic Conference championship to defend.

In 2023, the Wolverines women’s soccer team won its eighth PAC title — all under 32nd-year coach Melissa Lamie — going undefeated in the process. The only blemish on GCC’s record against conference foes was a 3-3 tie with Franciscan.

Grove City avenged that pock mark by defeating the Barons, 4-2, in the championship game.

“It’s still kind of surreal and unbelievable,” said Keller, a rising junior, about GCC’s most recent title. “Although I was pretty confident going into the season along with all my teammates and friends. We just didn’t back down at all.”

Keller played no small part in helping the Wolverines lift the championship trophy. An outside backer, she started every match — Keller played the second-most minutes on the team — and helped anchor a defense that yielded just 1.50 goals per game.

She also contributed a pair of assists.

Keller actually was more productive on offense as a freshman, scoring a goal and recording four assists. But during that season, GCC employed a four-person back line, making it more conducive for one of them to join the attack. Last season, Lamie went with a three-person back line, which limited the defenders’ opportunities to push forward.

No matter. Keller’s calling card is defense.

“Karly is probably our best 1-v-1 defender, and we recognized that right away when she came in as a freshman,” Lamie said. “So she started at the outside back for us right off the bat.”

As proof, Keller played the third-most minutes on the team during her first season and started 18 of 19 matches.

Lamie said Keller has all the tools to be a shut-down defender: smarts, speed, ability to diagnose plays, timing and, on the rare occasion she does make a mistake, the ability to recover quickly. That, Lamie said, is a product of not only talent but of a tireless work ethic, the same one that got her out of bed at 7:30 a.m. during her vacation.

All of it is fueled, the coach said, by Keller’s unending desire to prove herself. Not to Lamie and her teammates. They don’t need much convincing.

Nor do the coaches in the PAC. They voted her to the all-conference second team at the end of last season after giving her an honorable mention nod the year prior.

Rather, Lamie said, Keller is trying to prove herself to herself.

“She doesn’t think she’s very good, and she thinks she has to prove herself every day,” the coach said. “She’s very humble and probably one of our hardest workers, so she’s constantly driving that work rate on the field.

“I think I’m looking for her to grow these next couple of years in her own mental game, in that self-confidence. Knowing what she can do and then doing it, never questioning it or second-guessing herself.”

To Lamie’s point, when asked about her role in last year’s championship, Keller’s response was, “I wouldn’t say I had a huge role on the team … .”

Others would beg to differ, but Keller said she is learning to believe in her abilities.

“I would definitely say my confidence grew a lot,” she said. “My confidence came from the coaches trusting me in the back and my teammates talking me through everything, helping me build up that confidence and always helping me improve.”

The lessons she has learned and confidence she has developed will be needed this season. The Wolverines graduated eight seniors, many of whom were key pieces of the title team. So as a rising junior and now one of the older members of the team, Keller will be called upon not only to raise her level of play but become more of a mentor for the younger players.

Keller called herself a lead-by-example type who isn’t wont to speak up a lot. She knows that will have to change, and she hopes to be a better communicator on and off the field, believing strong bonds away from the pitch make for better connections on it.

As for her role on the team, she figures to be back in her usual spot on the back line. But Lamie isn’t ruling out the possibility of letting Keller get more involved in the offense. Personnel will dictate when or if that happens, but Keller plans to be ready for anything.

With her vacation over, she will go back to working out once a week at Legends of Pittsburgh Fitness in Tarentum then doing five days of soccer training on her own. Well, not always on her own. She said she often “drags” boyfriend Owen Zimmerman — also a Kiski Area grad and a rising junior forward on the GCC men’s soccer team — with her.

She plans the workout, and they go through it together.

“I put him through a pretty brutal workout,” Keller said with a laugh.

Whether running on the beach at Anna Maria Island at 7:30 a.m. or shooting shots at a field in New Kensington, it’s all in the name of defending a PAC title.

“We can’t get comfortable because we won the PAC last season,” Keller said. “Just because we lost so many people, we need to step up more. I know we can, and I know we can be just as good as last year.”