Personal Statement
Hi Coach,
I am an aggressive goalkeeper and have played this position since I was 7 years old. Passion, Courage, Wisdom, Excellence and Honor are values that have been instilled in me by my coaches over 1000s of hours of training and games. I would like to be at a college or university that offers a challenging high level soccer program where I will have the opportunity to earn playing time as well as pursue a degree in Health Sciences. I completed my senior year at Colchester High School and graduated in June, 2022 with a 3.45 GPA. I am attending Castleton University, but unfortunately I struggled with COVID at the beginning of the Fall 2022 semester which has impacted my ability to showcase my talents during roster selection.
I continue to play for Synergy Football Club (SFC) and have been playing for the club for the past 8 years. I was the starter for Colchester High School Varsity for 3 years since I was a sophomore and helped my team make it to the quarterfinals in 2020 and 2021. I received honorable mentions for my performance during the fall of 2020 from the Vermont HS coaches association and the Burlington Free Press. For fall of 2021, I was selected to the First Team for both Metro Division I and All State. I was selected MVP for the best of Vermont seniors vs. best of New Hampshire seniors Twinstate game in July, 2022:
Through my 3 years of HS varsity soccer I started and played all minutes in 41 of 42 games. My GAA was 1.49 and my save % was 83% (I had 307 saves and allowed 61 goals). We had a losing record my sophomore year and then increasing winning records my junior (6-5) and senior (9-7) years. Here are my senior year Fall 2021 varsity highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_TGUCzEBXU&feature=youtu.be
In addition to SFC and Colchester HS, I also have played with many Global Premier Soccer teams, Region I East ODP and Vermont ODP. I have earned numerous ID selections and played both nationally and internationally across the US, Costa Rica, UK and Sweden. I was named runner up to player of the tournament at the Sheffield Trophy in Sheffield, UK in August of 2019. I had the opportunity to play against top level development teams such as Celtic, Sheffield United, Leeds United and helped our team make it to the finals:
In July, 2019 at the Gothia Cup in Sweden, I led my team to the final 16 out of 94 teams. I had a clean sheet in a televised match against development academy team IF Elsborg which enabled us to advance out of the group stage:
I was on the East Region I ODP team for 3 years and played in Arizona and Costa Rica when I was an incoming freshman. I was also chosen from a series of competitive Global Premier Soccer ID sessions across the US in 2019/20 and made the selection as the only GK that was to travel to Bayern Munich for the German Youth Cup in May of 2020. Thomas Dollner, the Bayern youth soccer coach, personally chose me out of the hundreds of Global Premier Soccer goalkeepers across the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. I was also chosen to attend the Surf Cup in San Diego in August of 2020. Unfortunately, COVID forced these events to be cancelled and Global Premier Soccer out of business.
One thing that makes me different from other goalkeepers is my experience playing on multiple teams across multiple age groups at the same time. I have had to learn to adapt to constantly playing with different players that are sometimes 3-4 years apart in age, different coaches and different styles instead of always playing with the same people. This started when I was a developmental player (DP) for the Global Premier Soccer (GPS) USSDA U12 team and has continued with the GPS National/Elite teams, East Region I ODP, Vermont ODP, Colchester HS division 1 Varsity, Synergy FC and Castleton University.
Thank you for your time,
-Domenick Puttlitz
