Despite the goalkeeper stereotypes, women’s soccer senior goalie Skylar Kuzmich is a quiet person. It’s something she’s been battling on and off the pitch for her entire time at Hofstra.
“The goalkeeping position, you kind of want to be, in a non-negative way, the most obnoxious person on the field. You want to be that big presence. You want to be kind of scary. You want to be loud; you want to be demanding,” Kuzmich said. “You want to be able to direct your team, and so sometimes I struggle with finding that line of confidence and maybe [being] too timid or maybe too aggressive with teammates and things like that.”
Everything started clicking for Kuzmich in 2021.
“It wasn’t until last year that I started getting momentum going and my confidence grew,” she said. “I think by my third year I finally got the ropes down, and I could play more comfortably.”
A Hofstra win on the road against Princeton University last season, which she now looks back to as her favorite game with the Pride, was all the proof she needed to know that she truly was up to the task of goaltending.
“I think I matured a bit on a personal level, not just as a soccer player, and that helped me a lot,” Kuzmich said. “I remember after that Princeton game, I was talking to Lucy Porter, and she said that she never felt more confident with a Hofstra goalkeeper than that year.”
Kuzmich wasn’t the only person to notice her confidence skyrocket.
“My coach joked around with me, and he said that he noticed me mature more in these past 18 months than he has the entire four years,” Kuzmich said.
“We’ve had our ups and down, but the last 18 months she’s come a long way, maturity-wise; she’s actually started accepting responsibility and trying to get better,” said women’s soccer head coach Simon Riddiough. “She’s taken up the leadership role and accepted that she needs to be better to help this team win.”
One of the biggest things that goalies have to accept is that, sometimes, the ball will get past them. One of the things that Kuzmich has thrown herself behind to improve on is keeping herself locked in the game and not occupied with the mental struggle of letting up a goal.
“As soon as I let up a goal in the game, my number one concern is forgetting about it. I have to keep playing and not let up another goal,” Kuzmich said. “I had a coach tell me once that I need to have the memory of a goldfish. So if I let a goal go, I completely forget about it, pretend it didn’t happen and just focus on the next play that comes toward me.”
While acknowledging that she’s only human, she doesn’t take lightly to her role on the field.
“It’s a lot of pressure to perform because you’re that last line of defense for the team,” Kuzmich explained. “Sometimes it’s just not my day, but as a goalkeeper I don’t really have the luxury of just having the vibes [be] off.”
Coming from a family of soccer players, including a mother who also played in goal, comes with a lot of benefits, like learning how to deal early on with these kinds of pressures.
“If I get yelled at and I’m upset, they kind of help calm me down a bit,” Kuzmich said. “We have a phrase in my house: listen to the words, not the tone that they’re said in.”
As one of eight seniors this year, she has racked up so much experience under her belt that being a leader for her teammates felt like the natural progression from the start of her collegiate career to now.
“As a goalkeeper you have to be a leader on the field, so being a senior isn’t that crazy different,” Kuzmich explained. “My biggest role is just being someone that they can come to.”
She learned from a different set of characters when she was a freshman herself and sought to make change when it was her time to help the lowerclassmen.
“I remember when I was a freshman the seniors were super scary, and I don’t think we’re like them at all,” Kuzmich said. “That was my goal, I didn’t want [the freshman] to feel uncomfortable.”
Coach Riddiough thinks that Kuzmich went above and beyond on that promise, reinforcing how her character off the field is a massive departure from her persona as a goalie.
“She’s more of a motherly-type leader, very parental with the kids and nurturing, not necessarily the more stern or authoritarian type,” Riddiough said. “She organizes team events and little games and activities; she’s like the team mom.”
Kuzmich noted the balance she keeps in her life to keep herself in the best shape possible, both physically and mentally.
“When you’re playing a college sport, it’s not always about the sport you’re playing but about the connections you’re making,” Kuzmich said. “I’m making lifelong memories with people from all over the world, and I think that’s probably the most special thing about this team for me.”
Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein/Hofstra Athletics
