NEWARK, NJ—NJIT women's soccer coach Kevin Leacock announced that seven high school senior student-athletes have signed National Letters of Intent and will begin their academic and athletic careers as Highlanders in the fall. Four of the signees are from New Jersey, two are from Ontario, Canada, and one is from California.
They are (listed alphabetically):
Catherine Andrus, a defender from Monroe Township, NJ, and Bishop George Ahr High School in Edison.
Camille Billing, a forward from Tecumseh, Ontario, and St. Anne Catholic High School.
Anna Kornmuller, a goalkeeper from London, Ontario, and AB Lucas Secondary School.
Casey Parisi, a center midfielder from Santa Rosa, CA, and Montgomery High School.
Amanda Redden, a center midfielder from Hamilton, NJ, and Steinert High School.
Erin Schmitt, a defender from Ramsey (NJ) High School
Rebecca Tustin, a forward from Haddon Heights (NJ) High School
--Catherine Andrus was a starter from her freshman year on playing at Bishop George Ahr High School in Edison and the team reached the Greater Middlesex final her junior year. Bishop Ahr was division champion and she was honorable mention all-area as a senior.
A well-rounded student-athlete, the 5-foot-7 Andrus was the captain of her high school's girls basketball team and she will enroll in NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College with a major in biomedical engineering.
“Catherine is a stalwart defender who times the ball very well and is difficult to beat,” said Leacock. “She has good presence on the field and communicates well with her defensive unit.”
--Camille Billing is one of two Canadians who are slated to join NJIT women's soccer for the first time in 2010. She is from Tecumseh, Ontario, which is a few miles east of Windsor, the Canadian sister city of Detroit.
A 5-foot-6 forward, she has earned extensive team and individual honors in both club and school soccer. In school at St. Anne Catholic High in Tecumseh, she is a two-time team MVP and an all-city all-star with a team that was Ontario Provincial silver medalist in its classification (AAAA) when she was a sophomore. Her club team, the Bloomfield (MI) Force was rated as the 10th-best club for girls nationally by Soccer America and the Force was Michigan State Cup semifinalist.
Both of Camille's parents were NCAA Division I student-athletes in their own right. Her mother was a track student-athlete and her father was an ice hockey goaltender. He went on to a professional playing career in the International Hockey League, which is one step below the NHL, and he is the goaltending coach for the Windsor Spitfires, who are the Memorial Cup champions as the top junior team in Canada.
An honor roll student, Billing plans to major in chemistry at NJIT.
“She is a very crafty forward,” Leacock said. “She works well on and off the ball and we will rely on her speed and technical ability to create scoring opportunities.”
--Anna Kornmuller comes in as a goalkeeper from AB Lucas Secondary School in London, Ontario.
At AB Lucas, she is the last line of defense for a team that won the 2007 and 2008 Ontario Provincial championship. She also plays as a member of the London Gryphons club team, which competes in the United Soccer Leagues W-League in the second tier of women's club soccer in the United States and Canada. Both in high school and on the club level, Kornmuller was a teammate of Kyrsten Howell-Harries, who will be a senior at NJIT in 2010.
An honors student throughout her time in high school, she plans to major in engineering at NJIT. In addition to soccer, she has played hockey, volleyball, and basketball.
As a college freshman, she will help form a strong three-player goalkeeping corps that is led by senior-to-be Sadie Mele, who has played every minute in goal since arriving in Newark and who was named the 2009 Great West Conference Eastern Division Defensive Player of the Year. Junior-to-be Caity Raigni will also be on hand.
“We've had our eye on Anna for quite some time, having first seen her playing alongside Kyrsten (Howell-Harries),” said Leacock, who was an international goalkeeper for his native Trinidad and Tobago in his own playing days and later has coached the goalkeepers on the United States National Team teenage girls age group teams. “She's technically strong and she is very good at reading the opposing attack and thwarting it before it is fully developed. We will have a competitive environment with all three goalkeepers.”
--Casey Parisi is a center midfielder who played for Montgomery High School in her hometown of Santa Rosa, CA.
Her high school career has been filled with success, as Montgomery High captured the 2009 North Coast Division I championship after being a finalist the previous two seasons. She was voted her team's “most inspirational” player.
At the club level she played for the 2009 Surf Cup champions SCA 92 and she also played for the Sonoma County Sol in the Women's Premier Soccer League North Division Pacific Conference, the third tier of women's soccer in the United States and Canada.
She plans to enroll in NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College with a major in information technology/criminal justice and law specialization.
“Casey will bring stability to our midfield, an area where we have lacked consistency,” said Leacock. “She's able to bring the ball down quickly and transition from defense to offense before the other team can settled into position. She has vision that will help us from the middle field into the attacking third.”
--Amanda Redden is a 5-foot-4 center midfielder from the Trenton, NJ, area. A resident of Hamilton Square, NJ, she is a senior at Steinert High School, where she started on teams that captured at least a share of the Colonial Valley Conference each of her last three seasons.
In 2007, Steinert was Central Jersey Group IV champion and state tournament semifinalist. She was a New Jersey Girls Soccer Association all-state honoree in 2008 and 2009 and was recognized as all-area and all-CVC in selections by her local daily newspapers, The Trentonian and Trenton Times. As a senior, she was named to the Mercer 33 as one of the county's top 33 players.
Her club experience includes the Princeton Soccer Association and with the Princeton Union in the Super Y League, with whom she took part in the 2008 nationals.
A member of the National Honor Society and holder of a 3.7 GPA in high school, Redden's major at NJIT will be interior design.
“She's a Jersey kid who is a very technical player,” said Leacock. “She's very good at finding the ball and connecting with her teammates on pass that penetrate the defense. She's aggressive and will give us good attacking options.”
--Erin Schmitt comes to NJIT from northern New Jersey, where she has been a defender and was team most valuable player for Ramsey High School in Bergen County.
In 2009, she was named all-Bergen County and 2nd-team all-Suburban by North Jersey Media Group. She also captured 1st-team all-league, as well as all-state recognition.
Playing club ball for the Matchfit Chelsea Hurricanes, she was part of teams that made the State Cup semifinals in 2008 and the State Cup final in 2009.
She plans to major in history/education at NJIT.
“Erin, as a defender, is very tough to beat and get around,” Leacock said. “She reads the play very well and is able to intercept the pass before it gets dangerous in the defensive third.”
--Rebecca Tustin is a forward from Haddon Heights, not far from Philadelphia on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River.
A four-year letter winner and three-year starter at Haddon Heights High, she was captain as a senior and her team's top scorer in both goals and points each of her three years as a starter. She was twice picked all-conference and all-group and was an NJGSCA all-state honoree in 2008. She scored six goals in her last three high school regular season games in 2009.
She is also a track and field standout, competing in four events and earning both first and second-team all-conference honors for three years running, as well as 2nd-team all-group honors twice in the 4 x 400 relay. In 2009, she was 1st-team all-group multi-event.
“She will fit in well with the style we want to play and provide us with many more scoring opportunities,” predicted Leacock. “She fast and explosive both on and off the ball.”
Assessing this recruiting class as a group, Leacock is pleased. “We have made yet another step in our development as a Division I program,” said the coach whose club has been in Division I competition since 2006. “Each of these student-athletes has the ability to come in and add value to our level of play and to the development of our team. I'm confident that as these players develop, that our team's success will reach new heights.”
In 2009, NJIT posted a Division I era-best seven wins (7-9-2 overall), a total that was one shy of the most wins at any level by a program that began play in 1996 in Division III. The 2009 Highlanders also finished first in the Eastern Division of the Great West Conference in the inaugural season for the GWC, posting a 4-1-1 regular season mark.
