DE PERE (NBC 26) — With four straight conference titles, West De Pere has had plenty of star power — from three-time conference player of the year Marissa VanDeHei to Faith Walder, the all-time leading scorer in both basketball and soccer.
“You have two aggressive, strong attackers that are responsible for probably well over 120 goals within their career,” head coach Chad Johnson said. “They're both very modest in their game, but they both lead by example, and that's a coach's dream.”
VanDeHei started as a defender before making the move to forward. She has scored 66 goals over the last two years, earning conference player of the year honors three straight seasons.
Alongside her is Walder, who has tallied 78 goals — breaking the previous school record by 11.
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“I love playing with Faith,” VanDeHei said. “I know if I play the ball, she's gonna be there. We gel really well together. We know each other very well. Obviously, we've been playing together for a long time so we can get creative against other teams.”
But soccer isn’t even Walder’s main sport.
She’s committed to play basketball at Northern Michigan University, and earlier this year, she became the Phantoms’ all-time leading scorer with 1,569 points.
Still, she wasted no time shifting gears to soccer season. Just one week after leading West De Pere to the state basketball tournament for the first time in 47 years, Walder was back on the pitch.
“I definitely had some rust to knock off,” Walder said. “But I jumped back in. I thought it was gonna be a little harder, but it wasn't too bad.”
Walder knew she was one goal away from the school scoring record — and then exploded for six goals against Menasha to break it.
Coach Johnson said it’s not just the numbers that make her special.
“You wouldn't know how competitive she is by just hanging out with her and talking to her,” he said. “She is teammate first. She is family first. She is somebody who puts others before herself. Her biggest focus after she broke the record this year — I sent a congratulations — was simply: ‘Let's go get a conference championship now.’”
As Walder wraps up her high school career, she said she still hasn’t fully grasped what she’s accomplished.
“I mean, not really,” she said. “I haven't thought about it too much just with being super busy with school ending and everything, but, yeah, it's definitely a pretty cool experience.”
West De Pere will face Pulaski in WIAA regionals Saturday at 1 p.m.
