Another great Scott garners national attention

Soccer goalie Brady?follows in sister's?national footsteps|

Riley Scott may be the best swimmer ever at Petaluma High School, but younger brother Brady is, in his own way and in his own sport, fast approaching his sister’s success.

Brady is a 15-year-old freshman at Petaluma High School, where Riley is a senior. His chosen sport is soccer and he is very good - so good that he trains with the DeAnza Force, a U.S. soccer development academy in Santa Clara. He has already twice traveled to Europe to train at academies in England and Holland.

He was recently named to the under-16 U.S. National team, and he will attend a training camp in Southern California in August before making a trip to Holland with the team for a series of friendly matches against European teams.

Although he has friends on the Petaluma High School team, academy rules prohibit him from playing for the high school team.

Scott followed a familiar soccer path, he just moved along the path faster than most and has kept going. He began playing soccer in the Petaluma Youth Soccer League as a 6-year-old, quickly moved onto the Sonoma County Alliance traveling team, but then kept going, playing under-14 travel ball with the highly regarded Marin Football Club and moving on to the DeAnza Force.

Like all good young soccer players, Scott started out playing positions where he could score, but when he was playing SCA under-10, his team found itself without a goalkeeper and he moved in front of the net. After splitting his time between net and field as an under-12, he became a full-time goalie and that has been his spot ever since.

He says the pressure of being his team’s last-line of defense doesn’t faze him.

“I don’t get nervous,” he says. “I like the challenge. You can’t make mistakes. That’s what drives me.”

The level he is playing at now makes the already extreme competition for a spot on the travel team ultra-competitive for goalies. Only two were chosen for the Holland trip.

Success hasn’t just happened for Scott.

“It is a combination of a lot of things,” he says. “It is my training habits and being around the right people, but the main thing is my training habits.”

By training habits, he means hard work.

A dedicated player at every level, he now travels (with mom or dad driving) two hours four days a week to practice with the DeAnza Academy.

“It is hard, but it is doable,” he says. “I’ve had to learn about sleep management. I pretty much do everything in the car.”

That includes homework, where studying and reading in a car hasn’t stopped him from being a straight-A student.

Of course, while Scott is studying in the car, someone has to drive it. That someone is usually his mother, Teri, who is a busy person in her own right, teaching theology and coaching volleyball at St. Vincent High School.

“I’m very busy,” she acknowledges, “but when you have kids who are as driven as Riley and Brady, it is not a big deal. It is really exciting to have two kids as committed as they are. We are pretty much living the dream.”

Scott’s soccer has already taken him to places most teenagers only dream about, and to a success level few achieve, but he believes he is only getting started.

“I want to play soccer at the highest level against players from around the world,” he says. That means playing professional soccer and representing the United States in the World Cup.

But playing World Cup and professional soccer are only two of his goals.

“I want to be a professor of physics or astronomy or a lawyer and a politician,” he explains.

As good as he is, and as much as he has accomplished, Scott is still somewhat under the large shadow cast by his USC-bound sister. Riley has an amazing list of accomplishments. She is the best Petaluma High School swimmer ever and a national-quality competitor. She is a High School All-American, Empire Girl Swimmer of the Year and has competed internationally as part of a USA junior national team and has competed in the USA Swimming Nationals. And that is only the start of her resume.

“They are big shoes to fill,” Brady acknowledges. “We are super close. I consider her my best friend.”

But both are competitive.

“We are always competing to see who is at a higher level. It is another motivation for me,” Brady says.

Not that he needs any extra motivation.

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