Nov. 30—With only nine girls showing up for practice at the start of August, no one in Orwell seemed to be even sure if there would be a soccer team this fall at Grand Valley for Reagan Boiarski to play on.
Once the season started, though, it seemed nothing was going to stop the Grand Valley junior.
Even when the Mustangs were able to pick up a few more players on the roster, the sidelines was never a place Boiarski found herself.
“She never came off the field,” coach Vail Foltz said. “She played every single minute of every single game.”
Aside from minutes played, Boiarski led her team with 25 goals and helped the Mustangs to an 8-9-1 record, good for a third place finish in the Chagrin Valley Conference Valley Division.
For her efforts, she has been named Ashtabula County Girls Soccer Player of the Year as agreed upon by the county coaches.
“It means a lot to me because it shows that everything I’ve put into the sport is finally paying it off,” Boiarski said of the honor. “I’m getting the results that I’ve always wanted.”
What Boiarski meant to the Mustangs soccer program, though, was practically everything.
GV graduated six players from the 2022 team and was forced to use freshmen, some of whom had never even played the game before to replace them.
Foltz said Boiarksi was not only just what the young players needed to provide production on the field, but also what they needed to see as an example of what it takes to be successful.
“She was definitely our core player,” the coach said. “She was a great role model, the kids really looked up to her. The girls coming in were raw, they had no experience.
“But, just to have her, to see how hard she worked and how she handles the ball and just her everyday work ethic, it was just nice to have her.”
Playing with a few rookies around her was something that can cause frustration for veteran players.
But for Boiarski, seeing the development of her teammates and the progress they made was as rewarding as any
of her goals she scored.
“I actually enjoyed playing the game with girls that hadn’t played before,” she said. “It was fun to see them learn to enjoy the game the way I did. When something would click, it was exciting.”
A four-sport athlete and honor roll student at GV, Boiraski is part of a family that has a long athletic tradition at the school.
Nate Boiarski, her brother, is now playing football at John Caroll, while her mother, Michele Boiarski, has been also involved in sports as a student, then later as the athletic director.
Soccer is something she began at the age of 5.
Boiarski said over the past few years, she has worked hard on developing her right foot, which is her non dominant foot when playing.
According to Foltz, what she simply does better than anything else though is hustles.
“She just plays so hard,” she said. “She has a motor and she goes all the time and it’s never a jog, it’s always a sprint. She has so much speed and she just constantly hustles. She’s in great condition to be able to do what she does.”
While the 8-9-1 record this season may have surpassed expectations for a program that was not even sure if they’d field a team or not, Boiarski is now looking forward to expectations being much higher next season.
“Definitely,” she said. “We really picked it up this season. Next year, we’ll lose a few key players but we have a lot coming back and I’m hoping that there will be some girls coming up to fill those key spots and that we can do the best we can with what we have.”
Which is exactly what Boiarski and her team did this season.