Alyssa Blahnik: She's got power to burn

Alyssa Blahnik's first goal against Minneapolis South was a missile. Her shot hit the opposing goalie's hands straight-on, bent her fingers backward and the ball kept sailing right into the net without losing much steam at all.

Coach John Soderholm has seen a lot from his young star forward, but he still had to shake his head after that one.

"She can strike a ball as hard as any kid I've ever seen," Soderholm said.

Blahnik, a sophomore, had struck it 14 times into the net as of Tuesday night's 2-0 victory over Lakeville South, which pushed the Blaze to a 6-2 record. She is among the state's goal-scoring leaders while playing in the South Suburban, arguably the toughest girls' soccer conference in the state. With 16 goals as a freshman last season, she finished as the conference's second-leading scorer.

Blahnik is on pace to break school records.

"She's easily going to become our all-time leading scorer. I don't see how she won't, barring major injury," Soderholm said. "She's being double-covered, triple-covered sometimes. Her potential is limitless, in terms of goals. She could certainly crack that top 20 or 30 in the all-time scorers in the state."

At a little more than 5 feet tall, Blahnik has incredibly quick feet to complement her powerful shot. She can chest-trap the ball, and before it hits the ground, the scoreboard's added a Blaze goal.

"It was nice. It was high praise for a kid who is that talented, because she is. She's a very humble kid," said Soderholm, who's also president of the Burnsville Fire Soccer Club where Blahnik plays.

Incidentally, despite all of the passing, Blahnik scored all three goals in the victory, tallying her second hat trick of the young season. She's just as happy when a teammate scores, though, as long as it's a goal.

"I try to get other people to score because it's a team thing," said Blahnik, whose older brother, Ian, is a senior on the boys' Blaze varsity team. "It's nice to have other people score, too."

Blahnik has a lot of talented teammates with whom to work. Bailley Drayton, Tiana Khamvongsa and Abby Soderholm, the coach's niece, know how to get their leading scorer the ball -- even if she's often going to give it right back. Those three Blaze teammates have combined for 13 goals to thicken the offense.

Stuck in a star-studded Class 2A, Section 2 with the likes of Eden Prairie, Edina and Bloomington Jefferson, Burnsville will need its star scorer to continue her rabid pace -- a pace colleges have already taken a liking to.