SM East graduate a spark for Northwestern women’s soccer team

Addie Steiner can score goals from many different areas of a soccer field.

Whether it’s on a breakaway, running down the sidelines or executing a nice set piece near the net.

But there’s now one thing the sophomore at Northwestern University, and graduate of Shawnee Mission East High School, would like to do before her year is complete.

“I really want to score a header goal,” Steiner said with excitement by telephone. “I’ve never done that before. It’s been one of my goals for a long time, but I’ve yet to do that. But we’ll see.”

At 5 feet, 2 inches, Steiner’s been able to do score just about every other way for the Wildcats.

Earlier this season she took an early lead for most goals in the NCAA, and she still sits in the top 10 with six goals scored in the first six games.

“We found a lot of confidence in that, and after that we kept working hard,” Steiner said.

Last year as a freshman at Northwestern, Steiner, ended the season with two goals, but she put several other kicks on frame.

Along with transitioning to the college pace of play, moving away from her hometown made for another adjustment that many first-year college students must endure.

However, a summer of hard work and preparation has proven she’s ready to step up her game.

“It made me believe that if you work really hard at something, you will get better,” said Steiner, a Prairie Village native. I think that’s why our team’s going in such a good direction.”

Steiner picked Northwestern for many reasons, but she stated the academic demands of the university as one of the key reasons for choosing the Wildcats.

“The academics were a really big thing for me,” she said. “I wanted to play at a Division I school, but the deciding factor was having the chance to get a great education while also playing soccer. And Northwestern was all of that.”

With a strong start to this season, Northwestern coach Michael Moynihan was not shocked about her early contributions.

“She’s an energizer,” Moynihan said. “She’s very quick and puts a lot of teams on their heels. She sets an example for how fearless she is to go get challenges and to make things happen.”

The turning point, thus far, for her solid season came in Northwestern’s season opening tie of Notre Dame, followed by a victory over No. 15 Marquette.

Both of those factors helped her team find a good rhythm.

With some solid wins under its belt, Northwestern (4-1-1) is hoping to make a deep run in the physically demanding Big Ten Conference.

“A lot of Big Ten teams are nationally ranked or on the cusp of it,” Moynihan said. “One of the hardest things is playing back-to-back games when you have a really tough game on a Friday and you turn around and have another one on a Sunday.”

Steiner sees her team’s agility and quickness as one of the reasons it will be able to succeed.

“We do have speed and good technical abilities,” she said. “We use those strengths to work around big, physical play.”

With her second year of college soccer heating up, Steiner hopes that the rest of the season will lead to some more goals and team success.

“Our goal is to play each and every game with a warrior mentality,” Steiner said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a winning season and hopefully we can qualify (for the Big Ten Tournament).”

This story was originally published September 11, 2014 at 2:24 PM with the headline "SM East graduate a spark for Northwestern women’s soccer team."