Westmont’s Steck earns GSAC Player of Week

Westmont's Kelsey Steck

Westmont’s Kelsey Steck

Sophomore forward Kelsey Steck from Valencia has been named the Golden State Athletic Conference Women’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Week after scoring a hat trick against Arizona Christian on Saturday.

“Kelsey is probably our best athlete, through and through,” said Westmont head coach Kristi Kiely. “Her explosiveness, her power, her strength – her size and speed combined – make her very powerful.”

With five goals on the season, Steck is now the leading scorer for the third-ranked Warriors (10-0-3) who have had 16 different players score this season.

“She continually gets herself in great places where she is able to come up with goal scoring opportunities and just hasn’t been able to capitalize on those (before Saturday),” said Kiely. “She spent a lot of time last week after each (training) session working on finishing from lots of different angles. (Saturday) she scored from different sides of the goal. One was a poke in, one she had to drive a little bit and one she finished with a header.”

Steck scored the first two goals of the game after receiving a pass from Kaci Mexico. Her third goal (the team’s fourth) came off a cross from Missy Robertson. The Warriors defeated Arizona Christian 7-0.

“It is always nice to see the fruit from you labor and she definitely has been putting in a lot of effort,” said Kiely. “She is the first to lead our team in sprints and it was fun to get to see her put it all together.”

The undefeated Warriors, who have outscored their opponents 28-4 this year, have allowed only one goal in the last nine games. Westmont has four more games remaining in the regular season including a game at The Master’s on Wednesday and a game at San Diego Christian on Saturday.