Katherine "Kate" Mazzucco '22 Recruiting Profile

I currently play for MarinFC's U18/19 ECNL team.  We went 2-1 at the ECNL Championships in Florida in early July and were undefeated and unscored upon Surf Cup Super Black Champions in late July.  I also played for the ODP West Region champion CalNorth state team where I started at outside back and played 370 of 400 total minutes.  We were undefeated and unscored upon during the 2020 West Region Championships. I was selected to the 2020 ODP West region players pool.  Due to COVID, we did not form a West region travel team.  I am also a member of the NorCal PDP player pool and a first-team two-time all-conference and all-San Francisco high school player. I am a very physical player and despite my 5’ 3” size, I am often asked to mark the strongest and most aggressive players on opposing teams. I continue to develop into a very versatile player that is capable of playing anywhere on the field and for teams with different styles of play.

Soccer has always been an important part of my life, starting in kindergarten when we formed three random teams and my dad stepped up to coach. He coached our team, the Kittens, for 7 years with the same core group of girls. Over the years, we remained the Kittens and we were one of the only independent teams in San Francisco to compete in the competitive bracket and we beat teams from top clubs. I learned that if you take a group of girls and make them passionate about the game and about each other then they will learn to love the game and get really good at it.

In seventh grade I decided to try out for the best travel team in San Francisco, SF Elite Academy.  It was a newly formed club that was supposed to bring together the top talent in the city to play at the most competitive level. The only problem was that I wasn’t old enough but I went out for the team anyway and I made the top ’03 team. It was a big transition going from dad coached with girls I had played with my whole life to an entirely new team being coached by Jim Millinder, the head coach for University of San Francisco’s DI women’s soccer team. I put my mind to it and despite my young age and small size, I made the team and quickly earned a position as starting center back and played nearly every minute of every game. I thrived in this environment for three years and our team was moved up to the NPL Champions division and we competed against the best teams in Northern California.  In 2019, I moved to the SF Elite ’04 Champions division team to compete in my own age group and I was a starting midfielder. In 2020, I joined the MarinFC U17 ECNL team, and I am motivated to compete at the highest level. Between club ECNL, high school, ODP and PDP, I am constantly playing and challenging myself including traveling to Europe to watch the women’s world cup and play in a number of international friendlies.

Academically, I attend San Francisco University High School (SFUHS), one of the most challenging private prep schools in San Francisco, where I have a 3.75 overall GPA (3.53 Freshman Year and 3.73 Sophomore Year, 3.9 Junior Year).

I am looking forward to playing in college. I hope to find the right environment to pursue a degree  from a top academic school coupled with a strong soccer program where I can continue to compete at the highest level and make a big impact.