After watching a meltdown flip right into a miracle alternative, Winchester High soccer head coach Wally Dembowski didn’t hesitate to place the destiny of the sport on the foot of his first-year beginning kicker.
Belmont scored a landing towards the Red and Black with about 30 seconds left to take a 32-30 lead in Week 5 of final season. Winchester was on its approach to a crushing loss, however the ensuing kickoff was returned over 50 yards into Marauders territory.
Dembowski requested junior Kieran Corr if he wanted a timeout earlier than making an attempt a game-winner from 48 yards with three seconds to go, however he declined.
Corr admits in hindsight he ought to’ve taken the timeout to arrange for the whipping winds that evening, since his kick had the space however pushed broad. The Red and Black misplaced, however Dembowski had no regrets. He knew what he had in Corr.
Nine months later, the five-star kicker and punter introduced his dedication to Harvard University. In the next days, he transformed a 65-yard discipline aim to safe the Kohl’s Professional Camps’ No. 1 rating – incomes one in every of two nationwide kicker choices to the acclaimed Under Armour All-America Game in January.
“You learn a lot more from the mistakes than you do from doing something well,” Dembowski stated. “Week in and week out, he has gotten better, and better, and better. … He’s such a great kid, a great student.”
Kohl’s Professional Camps ranks him the No. 1 kicker within the nation and the twenty eighth punter.
It’s a operating joke for the 6-3, 175-pound Corr to inform his dad and mom he made a mistake deciding to play soccer. It’s humorous as a result of within the spring of his sophomore 12 months, his mom initially resisted his choice to go away the varsity soccer staff and pursue kicking.
It didn’t take lengthy to point out it was the suitable alternative.
Corr got here to the thought by watching movies of kicking camps, pondering they regarded enjoyable. He performed soccer in Pop Warner earlier than specializing in soccer in center college, however had the prospect to do each his freshman 12 months when the pandemic moved soccer to the spring. After the freshman 12 months ended, Corr shocked himself with a 50-yard discipline aim to win a Kicking World camp in Boston.
His return to soccer within the fall of sophomore 12 months was computerized and incomes a spot on the varsity staff was thrilling, however he nonetheless had a want to kick. There was no purpose he couldn’t nonetheless take part in kicking camps, in order that’s what he did.
That ensuing May, he had an aha second.
“I went into the Kohl’s Eastern Spring Showcase in New Jersey, and after that camp, I got a 4.5-star ranking and like, No. 42 in the country or something,” Corr stated. “In my eyes at the time, it was amazing. I wanted to try to be a college athlete, and I maybe could’ve played D3 soccer or found a smaller school to play soccer at. But I really wanted to push myself and see what I could achieve. … That’s when I realized I had a potential future in this.”
From there, it was a deep dive.
Dembowski seems to be again at Corr’s work ethic final 12 months fondly, however even he felt the workload may’ve been an excessive amount of. He estimates Corr kicked about 150 balls every week. Come the offseason, he confirmed simply what he was working so arduous for.
Corr’s mom might have briefly resisted soccer at first, however his dad and mom didn’t rob him of any alternative. They helped him attend kicking camps in Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida since his freshman 12 months. Corr’s rating simply saved rising, main as much as the current Kohl’s camp in July that noticed him beat a bunch of 900 kickers to safe a coveted spot within the UA All-America Game.
The seven finalists had been nailing discipline targets from over 60 yards, and he wanted a 65-yarder to win it.
“It’s awesome, I’m so grateful to have come such a long way since I first started,” Corr stated. “I all the time suppose again to freshman me on this discipline. I didn’t actually know if I used to be going to play soccer. … To be capable to carry out on this Under Armour All-America Game, it’s simply a possibility that I by no means would have thought can be potential.
“My parents are a little blown away by how far this has gone.”
There’s little shock Corr selected Harvard, citing its tradition to easily be the very best at no matter ambitions college students aspire to. But within the meantime, Dembowski is thrilled for the chance to have among the finest particular groups within the state this 12 months.
Between Corr’s excessive touchback charge on kickoffs, and the college-level operation time of the sphere aim/punting unit with University of New Hampshire-committed long-snapper Dillon Keough, Winchester has a transparent benefit. If climate situations are proper, Dembowski is open to sending the sphere aim unit in for as far out because the 40-yard line.
“I don’t know the state record for longest field goal, but we’re going to give it a shot,” he stated. “I’m going to have no problem sending the field goal team out on the 40-yard-line, and line up to kick 58-yarders – in high school. … (Special teams) is a huge advantage.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com