courtside

Short answer: Yes, but some context helps. Longer answer: Maddie is a unique talent that doesn’t come across often, especially at her position. She’s a forward. She scores goals. She sets up goals. She’s excellent off of the dribble or in space. That position also gets more attention than other positions. She is one of the best players in the country in her age group. Class of 2027. She would likely reclassify to 2026. 2026 Izzy Dalke (Clemson) is an outside back and USYNT regular in her age group. 2026 Gracie Milam (Florida) is a center back and also a USYNT player in her age group. 2026 Lily Selvy (Penn State) is a goalkeeper with USYNT experience. 2026 Alex Pfeiffer is a forward who turned professional just as she was turning 16. She plays for KC Current in the NWSL. She was the 4th youngest NWSL signing and she became the youngest ever NWSL goal scorer. Unfortunately then Alex tore her ACL last season. Alex helped lead USYNT to the U15 Concacaf Championship. And ahe scored the game winning goal for USA in the Mondial Montigu Final U16 Final. Alex was the ECNL National Player of the Year and also the top ranked player in her class. She would have been a 2026 graduate. She played up with 2024 and 2025 players to win back to back ECNL National Championships, including with a few Billikens. 2025 Caroline Birkel (Stanford) is a regular USYNT Goalkeeper in her age group. 2025 Grace Restovich (Notre Dame) reclassified to be 2024 instead of 2025. Box to box central midfielder and USYNT regular with Birkel. She had a good Freshman season at Notre Dame on a young NCAA Quarterfinal team. They will be one of the national title favorites in 2025. 2027 Ella McNeal. Ella is one of the best few goalkeepers in the country in 2027 class. She did not play high school soccer. She did play basketball at Parkway West. She is a regular goalkeeper for the USYNT for her age group. There are 2 USYNT players from St. Louis in 2028 class. And there is 1 from the 2029 class. There also was a recent new USYNT college camp announced to increase player pool depth for the USYNT at that age group. 2 St. Louisans were invited, Kiley Kukan a forward,(Alabama) and Zoe Cuneio, a center back (Purdue) were invited. Cuneio reclassified from 2024 to 2023. And that’s just USYNT players from St. Louis. There have been other very high level players that didn’t play USYNT. Example: Another St. Louisan was one of the best Freshman college players nationally at Arkansas this past season, Jay Brownlee. She played high school soccer with 2 Billikens. SLU for example, has had many recent All Americans, and none were all that highly ranked as youth players. Obviously many top ranked youth players go on to great college and pro careers. Some don’t. And some our perform their recruiting or rankings. This is similar to any other sport. Kansas City has some USYNT players in a similar age group but they live in Kansas. Generally speaking but not always the best high school aged soccer players in KC are on the Kansas side. Megan Hinnenkamp was the SEC Freshman of the year in 2023. Injured in 2024. She is from Liberty, MO Izzy Dalke is Metro East Illinois. 2025 Lily Freer (Stanford) is Metro East Illinois as well. ………….. As far as their high schools: DiMaria: Cor Jesu McNeal: Parkway West Dalke: Althoff Milam: Francis Howell Selvy: Fort Zumwalt North Pfeiffer: Visitation Restovich: Visitation Birkel: MICDS Kukan: Winfield Cuneio: Eureka Brownlee: Fort Zumwalt South Freer (Alton) Hinnenkamp: Liberty North The 2028 STL USYNT players attend Edwardsville and Visitation. And this again doesn’t include several other players in different class years that have had high level college success. Rylie Combs was the SEC Defender of the Year this past season at Mississippi State. She attended St. Dominic. Maci Teater (Holt) was named to the best 7 team for the TST Tourney this Summer. She plays at Vanderbilt, formerly North Carolina. And so on. ………… But yes Maddie DiMaria is one of the best players in the country in her age group, USYNT player. She’s ranked #1 nationally, in two different rankings in her year.She’s a forward as is Alex Pfeiffer. None of the other STL players played high school soccer as a Sophomore. Some switched to high school after their college commitments, as Juniors. Some played as Freshman. Some never played it. ……….. Ella McNeal is considered to be a top 3 goalkeeper nationally in 2027, top 25 overall at any position. Alex Pfeiffer was number 1 nationally in 2026 as a forward. 2026 Dalke was top 10 as an outside back. Birkel was top 2 nationally at goalkeeper in 2025 class, top 30 overall. 2024 Restovich was top 10 even though she reclassified from 2025. KC has a top 10 national player in 2027 at center back. Another fast rising player is top 50 but soon to be top 25 probably. Both are on the Kansas side and don’t play high school soccer. KC also gets a few top 50 level players various years. Typically the best few STL players annually are top 50 level. More importantly for SLU’s purposes, SLU know how to identify,, recruit, close, and develop, many high level, on the rise, players, regardless of rankings. SLU will also target many top 50 top 100 caliber players from anywhere in the country. SLU’s recruiting list of roughly 175 players includes players from 30 states and 45 cities. There are several good high level St. Louis players on it. Half a dozen from the same club. A few elsewhere. Maddie DiMaria tops that national list for them.

You’re welcome. I was wondering when I was going to get this question outside of private messages. Speculation isn’t my thing. But I will share what I shared with some others for many months privately. Short answer: SLU is heavily recruiting her, and yes SLU has a legit, strong, chance of landing her. Competition is elite and challenging, as expected. The process takes time. Long answer: SLU has been actively recruiting Maddie for a while. SLU has put together a competitive, unique, NIL package to compete with the small, select number of elite programs on the coasts of interest to her. Those are mostly coastal ACC and the few West Coast warm weather Big 10. Maddie is a reclassification candidate. She is allowed to change her mind at any time but she has said she prefers not to skip too many steps, meaning she prefers to play college soccer first before professional soccer. At this time, she hasn’t added any new schools to her list since June 15th recruiting period opened. That hasn’t prevented many from trying. Katie Shields attended many/most of her high school basketball games, high school soccer games, and club soccer games this past year. All of the above. Maddie most often plays as a left sided forward in a 3-4-3 system at both the club and high school level. She also plays with the USYNT in her age group. But she can and does play any of the attacking positions. It’s extremely competitive, but I like SLU’s chances. SLU will do very well with or without her. So that people understand the landscape. Maddie is just 1 of 13 local STL youth players that have played with the USYNT program over the past 5 years. A few of those are younger than her. And a few differences with similar age and older players are: The others didn’t play high school soccer. More people know Maddie because of that. Her family has strong ties to SLU and the STL soccer community. And Maddie has landed a few accolades such as the one you mentioned, as well as the top ranking in her age group at both TDS and Prep Soccer. The point of that is to say Maddie is a great, elite player, and talent, deserving of accolades and who will hopefully pick SLU. But, there are many other high level stud players out there locally, (and nationally) with other names too. Some of those players are perhaps less familiar to some for some of the reasons I gave. Example: Did you know that Ella McNeal has been a long time USYNT Goalkeeper? She is the younger sister of 2025 SLU Men’s Soccer player Jacksen McNeal. There are 11 other player stories too. And that’s just USYNT players. Sometimes the players with the better college careers were never affiliated with USYNT or had special accolades. Maddie’s dad Jeff played at both Connecticut and SLU as did Kevin Kalish at a similar time. Both were All Americans. Maddie’s mom Sara played at Loyola Chicago as SLU only had a club team at the time. Maddie’s older sister Ana is a reserve player at Mizzou as she sat out last year with injury. Jack is playing at SLU this Fall. Younger brother Tommy broke his ankle during a USYNT U14 game this Spring. But he will be back for Fall ball. Everyone is different, but a typical recruiting cycle is 3 to 6 months of getting to know the player/staff, and the player giving a commitment. That’s how it is on the Women’s side, with some taking up to a year to commit somewhere. The Men’s pace is much slower. Official visits begin August 1st. Football schools schedule visits for football weekends so the recruit can be in the field for the game etc…which pushes some of those visits into the later Fall months. Maddie’s next game is Thursday at the ECNL playoffs in Del Mar (San Diego). She is playing up with the U19’s in the Round of 16. They play Solar (Dallas) this Thursday. 3 SLU commits are on the team. 2025 Caroline Chier (Missouri Class 3 Player of the Year) 2025 Ava Rademeyer (Missouri 1st Team All State, 2025 Blakely Hockett (Illinois All State) Maddie usually plays on the 08 team with 2 other SLU commits 2026 Lucy Marsh and 2026 Keira Bartholet, also all conference and all state players. SLU has roughly 175 recruiting targets this cycle nationally. Early priority targets are roughly a dozen to 2 dozen at this time from a variety of geographies. Recruiting is a 365 thing. SLU and several other schools recruited a recent 2026 from player from Texas who is talented but coming off of a knee injury. So her process took a little longer. She committed elsewhere.

Unrelated, Georgetown will be playing Men and Women’s soccer home games under the lights this Fall. It’s the first time they will have lights at Shaw Field since they began playing games there in 2001.

It’s mixed. Committee Timing is “curious” just after the new NCAA Rulings. Some would say U.S. Soccer has enough of its own challenges. And, it’s a conflict of interest to have the committee chair be a paid consultant with U.S. Soccer. Sasho (Maryland) has wanted to change college soccer to 2 semesters similar to some other sports such as tennis etc…Many with power in the Women’s college game like the status quo. Dan (Helfrich committee chair) is a big college soccer guy. He played at Georgetown. His son currently plays there. And, his daughter plays for Virginia. Angie (Long) will want to do what benefits her pro team in KC, even though she and her family have several Ivy Leaguers in it. Her daughter played one year at Duke as a reserve player on a loaded final four team. She is an NWSL pro player in development at KC in year 2 instead of playing a bigger role at Duke. Also plays U20 USYNT. Reclassifying is more popular in the Women’s game. I don’t see a separate championship for some teams but not others, happening without resistance. So, it depends on the topic and the agenda. Some proposals I would support. Some I would not.

St. Louis City Academy celebrated their 2025 college signings. For the SLU 7, it’s 3 Billikens on the left. 3 on the right. 1 in the back middle. 7 of the 12 are SLU commits https://www.stlcitysc.com/news/twelve-st-louis-city-sc-academy-players-announce-2025-college-signings In addition to these players, SLU has 3 additional commits, 1 each from St. Louis Scott Gallagher, Seattle United, Orlando City, and Inter Miami. SLU also has 2 mid semester transfers from UCLA and Boston College, bringing the class total to 12. More info about all of these players can be found doing a search here, or just send a message. SLU will also be sending out a release soon this Summer.

Mia Berardi is a 2027 SLU commit from Algonquin, Illinois. Mia is a Central Defensive Midfielder, who can get forward as a box to box midfielder. She is the Captain for the Rockford Raptors 08 team. The 09 team won the rugged ECNL Midwest Conference this past Fall. (That league includes Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin etc..) The teams combined for their Spring Super Cup team. A physical defender, Mia was also a stand out player offensively at the recent national showcase events in Florida and Texas, scoring several goals and providing assists in addition to her defense. They begin their playoff quest next weekend in San Diego. Mia attends Huntley High School. She played Super Cup Club Soccer this Spring. She has also been USYNT ID Camp participant. https://x.com/miaberardi27/status/1935712812497514730?s=46

Even though there have been some upsets in college baseball this postseason, an SEC program will play for the national championship this weekend, for the 16th time in 17 seasons.

Weather delayed game from last night will be resumed this morning between UCLA and LSU. High School U vs Transfer U. 37 of the 40 players for UCLA were recruited out of high school. Lots and lots of successful Sophomores for the Bruins. They have 3 transfers, 2 relief pitchers and a starter. 16 of the 40 players for LSU are transfers, including key players in their lineup, and, on the mound.

Former 7 year Dayton Head Coach Jayson King, is out as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt after 1 season. He was part of a staff that won the SEC Tourney and had acquired the number 1 overall seed. He was brought in as a hitting coach. Interestingly enough, of the two Dayton players he brought with him, pitcher Connor Fennell was the big get. He went from a reserve player, to spot starter, to weekend starter, to NCBWA 3rd Team All American, all within the same season. (Rawlings All Region team) ………….. 3 of the early names for San Diego St. HC position, (according to Kendall Rogers) are Kevin Vance (Arizona), Rusty Filter (Santa Clara), Pat Hallmark (UTSA). ………….

New HC Brian O’ Connor kept current Mississippi State pitching coach Justin Parker for the new staff. That left a landing spot for his 6 year assistant at UVA, Drew Dickinson. According to Joe Healy, (reliable) Missouri is hiring Dickinson to be their next pitching coach. With some of the best pitching staffs nationally, UVA made 4 out 5 Super Regionals at Virginia, and 3 College World Series appearances during his time there. Dickinson is a former Illinois assistant on some of their strong teams, and a former star player at Illinois.

Frozena worked for the same head coach for 13 seasons, at two different stops. (UNLV/UIC) She then worked for an additional head coach (Cleveland State) for 6 seasons. After 19 seasons, she left on her own for the first time, to take an assistant position in the Big Ten. That head coach stepped down after Frozena was there for just one season.

After Mississippi State hired Brian O’ Connor from Virginia, Virginia has hired Duke Head Coach, Chris Pollard, shortly after Duke’s Super Regional ended. At Duke, 12 seasons. 7 out of the past 9 NCAA Regionals. 4 Super Regionals. https://x.com/kendallrogers/status/1932461236878201240?s=46

if SLU is seeking a little motivation and inspiration, to invest just a little more with its baseball program: 38% of the 8 team College World Series, is located within a 5 hour drive of St. Louis. Murray State, just over 200 miles away, is the 3rd school from Kentucky to make the College World Series in the past 2 seasons. A 4th Western Kentucky, and NCAA Regional Team, won 46 games this season. The MVC had the 20th best Baseball Conference. Sun Belt was 8. https://x.com/gdemarraistv/status/1932257811435581872?s=46

If Murray State can get a win tonight, it will be just the 3rd time in the Super Regional era, 26 years, that the 8 College World Series Teams are represented by 7 different conferences. (1999, 2003) The majority of successful postseason teams this year have been the least volatile teams in terms of runs scored and runs allowed. And they have been with the less high profile portal transfers.

Perhaps SLU should drop to D2 ball? The Milwaukee Brewers have a Wash U alum on their team. Maybe SLU should drop to D3? Just schedule the Fond Du Lack Dock Spiders at Ellen Clark Sculpture Park with Golden Retriever bat dogs.