Often when growing up in a sports family, someone might be put into a sport they have no interest in to keep the family legacy going. That was the case for senior goalie Andrew Taylor before his love of the game of soccer grew.
Taylor’s parents both liked the idea of him following in his father’s footsteps of playing soccer. Although he started playing at a young age, he did not really start to enjoy playing until his junior year of high school.
“I wasn’t too into it when I was in high school,” Taylor said. “It was around junior year where I realized I wanted to keep playing because I enjoyed winning. It was fun. We had a lot of success in high school, so I wanted to keep doing that.”
Originally, Taylor started as a field player, but during one practice, the goalie no showed. Due to Taylor being the tallest player on the team he was put in goal and has been in the goal ever since.
Taylor accredits the team bonding as his reasoning for not only finding his love for the game of soccer, but also wanting to continue playing at a collegiate level.
As a goalie, Taylor’s preparation on a game-to-game basis changes. Working with his coach, he’s able to learn and adapt to different types of styles based on who someone is as a player.
“We’ll see what their strikers are used to doing, whether that’s crossing or going right down the middle. We’ll work on stuff like that. We really try to focus on which team we’re playing and design our practices around them,” Taylor said.
“I think team chemistry and just being a group close together is huge because you’re all happy to go and play with each other every single day. When you have a group of guys, like we do, who just love playing together, it makes everything ten times better,” Taylor said.
The team chemistry that Taylor and his teammates were able to have propelled them to the SUNYAC finals last season, an accomplishment that Taylor is proud of.
“I think being able to achieve that showed great progress for us. We struggled the year before, but making the SUNYAC final and falling just short of penalties shows us there’s more to come,” Taylor said.
Playing in his first post-season, Taylor was excited, but felt the pressure of wanting to make a run.
“A lot of things are happening when you’re playing in the post season. Obviously nerves since it was my first time, but once you’re able to get over that self doubt everything just comes naturally,” Taylor said.
Taylor also achieved an individual award last season during this great run. He was named a member of the second team all-conference.
“It was a big accomplishment. After struggling last year, I thought the team came together really well. So being able to play well as a collective unit and being lucky enough to be one of the guys selected for our conference was a big accomplishment,” Taylor said.
Taylor started more games this past season and it showed with his numbers. Posting 78 saves and a save percentage of 82%.
