HAMPDEN – Amy Cattelle had been the proverbial understudy.
For three years, she was the backup goalkeeper for the Hampden Academy girls soccer team, playing behind All-PVC player Becky Huson. Cattelle watched, learned, and waited for her time to come.
This fall, during Cattelle’s senior year, the spotlight was finally hers. She helped lead the Broncos to a 10-3-3 record this season while making an appearence in the Eastern Maine Class A semifinals.
During the last month of the season, Cattelle turned her game up a notch, recording a 5-1-1 record with four shutouts. For her efforts leading up the playoffs, Cattelle has been named Midweek’s Athlete of the Month for October.
“Actually, she’s done more than I had projected,” said Coach Randy Dodge, who has an assistant at Hampden when Cattelle was a freshman.
“Of all my kids, I would say I have the most respect for her as a player. She was playing behind Becky and she could have said to heck with us. Why practice and improve if she’s not going to get the playing time? But she had some huge games this year and that’s what kept us going.”
“I just decided to keep going with it,” said Cattelle, who had a goals- against average this season of 0.75 with a total of seven shutouts. “I was having fun and it was something I knew I could. I really stuck to it and worked as hard as I could.”
Replacing a ‘keeper of Huson’s magnitude put some pressure on Cattelle early in the season.
“It did a little bit, but then I realized it was my turn,” she said. “I had been working hard for three years and this was my year, so I had to do the best I could because I had one year to prove what I could do.”
What Cattelle proved was that, despite a less-aggressive style as her predecessor, success comes in all different shapes and styles.
“The only comparison I would have to make is that both were game players,” Dodge said. “They had some saves that were unbelievable. Things you wouldn’t expect them to do, but they did.”
One save that really stands out to Dodge was in the regional quarterfinal game against Bangor.
With a Bangor forward streaking in on a one-on-one situation and Cattelle made a save that secured a 1-0 Hampden victory.
“She had a breakaway from midfield and one-on-ones usually are goals,” Dodge said. “Amy made an unbelievable save. It should have been a goal, but due to Amy’s experience and knowledge it ended up being a great save.”
Cattelle called the Bangor quarterfinal game the biggest game of her career.
After all, she had come a long way from being a freshman goalkeeper who knew little about the sport.
“When I started out as a freshman, I didn’t know anything about being a goalkeeper,” Cattelle said. “Coach Dodge taught me all the skills and Becky helped out a lot. Just watching her being so dedicated to the sport made me want to play and do the things she did.”
One way Cattelle probably will not follow in Huson’s footsteps is by playing in college. Huson, who is currently in South Carolina for basic training in the Army, plans to look into playing at the University of Maine upon her return.
Cattelle plans to spend a year with relatives in Sweden, where she will study and play club soccer. Upon her return, she has no plans on playing soccer at the college level.
“It will be an experience,” Cattelle said. “I don’t really know. I basically want to study my academics. High school was a time to do all the sports I can and have fun. College is going to be more of an academic thing.”
Even if she never makes another diving stop for a soccer ball again, however, Amy Cattelle will know that three years of being an understudy was well worth her one year of playing out the starring role.
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