It’s a Mind Game for Holy Names’ Samantha Germano ‘21

Samantha Germano, a senior at the Academy of Holy Names believes soccer is all in the mind. The star winger credits her mother for emphasizing the importance of her vision and mind on the soccer field growing up.

The type of vision that can predict the first, second, and third move that a player is going to make. The type of vision that can set up a play, 3 steps before it happens. The type of vision that helps your team become 2018 Section 2 Class B Champions.

Germano is a third-generation soccer player. Her grandfather was the first of the bunch, playing at New Lebanon. Next was her mother who went on to play for 2 years at Hudson Valley Community College and 2 years at Buffalo State. 

And now in her senior year of high school, Germano is committed to playing Women’s Soccer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

Germano has played for several teams since she started playing soccer. Starting at Brunswick, then Averill Park, then GPS from about U-14 to U-16, and eventually landing in her current club the Alleycats.

The Holy Names student-athlete has been going there since the fourth grade and has been playing varsity soccer since seventh grade. Which is totally normal right? It is clear that Germano was always going to be a soccer star.

And this was definitely shown in her 2018 season. When the Holy Names Varsity soccer team were crowned Colonial Council Champions. Eventually moving on to become Class B Champions in Section 2. A team helped by star wing-back Samantha Germano.

That Class B Championship was also played against Germano’s biggest rival Schalmont. That game lived to tell an exciting tale where Holy Names came back from a 2-0 deficit to win in the last seconds of overtime 4-3.

Germano talks about how her mind and vision helped make her the soccer player she is today. “I can tell when someones going to shoot the ball before they even shoot it… My mind has always moved at such a fast pace… I’m always thinking.”

“When you’re running suicides, okay you just gotta do it.” I think this is the best quote to describe Germano’s work rate and mentality.

In January of her junior year, Germano dislocated her left knee cap and tore her MPFL. Putting her on crutches and out of soccer for several months. And by the time the 2020 fall season came around, she was not fully recovered.

However, COVID-19 inevitably pushed her season to the spring. Germano felt that this was a blessing in disguise for her soccer season “I know like mentally I would have pushed myself so much harder (to recover for the fall) and I probably would have gotten injured again.”

Now as the Spring soccer season is underway, she is fully recovered and ready to finish her final year of high school ball with a bang.

In terms of Germano’s college decision, it came down to two things. Can she study engineering? And is the soccer coach someone she would thrive under?

She always knew she wanted to be an engineer. “I was the 6th grader that was like okay I wanna do engineering… they build things! Like duh.” 

When it came to coaching, Germano was looking for someone down-to-earth, more personal. Like her current Holy Names coach. And it was on a visit at WPI she met Jenna, a senior center back at WPI right now. Jenna told Germano all about their coach, describing her as very personal, sitting down to have coffee with the players, etc.

It was at that point when she really started to focus on WPI. Fortunately, she was able to play at a college showcase in front of the WPI coach before COVID hit. Almost sealing her commitment.

As her relationship with that coach began to grow, she found that WPI was truly the best, most unique place for her future. In December of 2020, Germano announced her commitment to WPI to study engineering and play soccer.

Germano faces off against her rivals Schalmont this Saturday in what could be their final contest with each other. CSMN wishes her luck for that game, the rest of the season, and the future at WPI and beyond.