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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Player to Join Skyhawks

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
    Maggie Gronewald will be missed when she's gone.
    The East Mountain High senior is listed as a 5-foot-8, 140-pound center-midfielder for the Rio Vista Football Club Tiburonas on her college resume. Last week, she signed a national letter of intent to play soccer for the NCAA Division II Fort Lewis College women's team.
    The Skyhawks' campus is in Durango, Colo.
    "Fort Lewis is great," Gronewald said. "Damian (Clarke), the coach, has been great, very informative. But mainly, it was Durango that made up my mind."
    Gronewald— the 18-year-old sports a cumulative 3.7 grade-point average— has heard the talk about Fort Lewis being a party school. Yes, she knows it's a tourist town, and that it's bitterly cold in the winter.
    "But it's the perfect distance, not too close, but takes a little planning to make a visit up there," she said.
    Gronewald, the daughter of Daneen Gronewald and T'Wolves assistant coach Pat Gronewald, was barely noted in the immediate aftermath of East Mountain's first-ever state-tournament victory, a 3-1 first-round win against Las Vegas Robertson in 2006. But her absence was conspicuous when she departed the subsequent quarterfinals game versus Hope Christian.
    The game was scoreless until Gronewald exited with an injury. The Huskies took advantage, promptly attacking with Gronewald, a high school center-defender, on the sideline.
    Hope went on to win 3-0.
    Gronewald was named to the Class 1A-3A all-state first team in 2006. She was East Mountain's female student-athlete of the year.
    "I love playing for East Mountain," Gronewald said.
    Also in 2006, the Tiburonas were crowned the U.S. Club Soccer under-16 national champions.
    "She's a great kid, a great athlete," Timberwolves girls soccer coach Jack Veenhuis said. "She was all-state. What can you say to top that? She was real coachable, fun to be around."
    But she got hurt in club competition during the spring of 2007 and the resultant reconstructive surgery of her right knee forced her to sit out the fall 2007 prep soccer season.
    Gronewald then unselfishly chose to play for a short-handed EMHS hoops team this season even though there is a risk of hurting the recuperating, still occasionally wobbly knee. Her college hopes could easily be dashed.
    "Actually, I was against it at first," she said. "I wanted to concentrate on club and college soccer. But then basketball rolled around, and that idea went out the door."
    Gronewald's mother helps behind the scenes.
    "She's always at the games," Maggie Gronewald said. "She puts up with my attitude. After games, I'm not the most confident person, not always happy with the way I play. She's always there to support me and reassure me."