Girls Soccer: ‘She was able to be that anchor’ Alex McPhee’s energy, emotional leadership set tone for Oswego East’s unbeaten regular season

Alex McPhee relished a role reversal this spring.

McPhee, Oswego East’s senior defender and a Ball State recruit, always has been the younger girl on her travel and high school teams.

Not so this spring with a Wolves’ varsity team that was teeming with young talent and only five seniors.

“Being a leader was a lot of fun. I think about when I was an underclassmen, all the girls cheering me on,” said McPhee, who has played varsity since she was a freshman. “I never worked well when teammates yell at me. I always try to cheer them on. It was fun doing that for the girls.”

The Wolves indeed had plenty of fun.

Oswego East enjoyed an unbeaten regular season, winning the Southwest Prairie Conference championship, and outscored opponents 85-10. McPhee, less than a month after her last high school game in the regional final against Neuqua Valley, didn’t sound ready for the 14-1 season to end.

“Honestly, it doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t feel like I should be leaving yet,” McPhee said in a phone interview while at freshman orientation at Ball State. “It was a great way to end. I wasn’t sure how it would go. I thought we would have a talented group. We were so much closer than I expected.”

McPhee, named the SPC MVP and an all-sectional pick, started every game and scored seven goals with 13 assists.

She also set an emotional tone for a special season. McPhee was part of losing seasons in 2018 and 2019, and missed her junior year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“She had been through the wringer. That motivated her to go out with a bang,” Wolves coach Juan Leal said. “She told the girls before the season, ‘I missed my junior year, you have no idea what high school soccer means to me.’ She teared up and was quite sentimental with the girls. She really helped the girls kind of become one, was able to be that anchor.”

Oswego East’s breakthrough season in a sense mirrors McPhee’s young career.

She said she sat the bench a lot when she was younger on travel teams, and would come home from practice crying – but learned to overcome.

“A lot of girls quit, but my parents and sister believed in me,” she said. “It’s like hills on a roller coaster. Sometimes you go up, sometimes down. When you are on the downside, you have to keep your head up.”

Leal noticed a girl who started doing what the Wolves needed her to do her sophomore year, and came back this spring physically stronger and with the utmost confidence. McPhee has a laser beam of a shot – and it’s accurate. But it’s her speed and endurance that perhaps stand out the most.

“If we would play a 90-minute game, she could play 90 minutes. She’s just so physically strong in her legs and upper body,” Leal said. “She was basically a college-level girl playing with high school girls.”

McPhee, who remembers herself as a younger player with skinny legs, had to work to build that fitness with an inner drive and competitiveness. Leal said she’s in the gym and running 5 to 10 miles a day for fun to keep herself active, and the other girls feed off of that.

And that energy bears out on the field.

“She brought a whole different level of pickup to the game. When we needed her on the offense, we knew she would be there every time as a next-row attacker. She would find a way and Alex would bring 2-3 girls at her,” he said. “Even if Alex was up in an offensive third, our defense knew give her five seconds, she’ll be right back down. She’s so fast. It helped the defense to establish that confidence.”

McPhee loved playing outside back, and loved playing with this particular group. Her little sister, Sam, was Oswego East’s sophomore goalkeeper, and Sam’s best friend, Erika Smiley, was one of the Wolves’ top scorers. McPhee looks back fondly on the games, but also the trip to Six Flags and the pool parties.

“This has been my favorite year,” said McPhee, who plans to study journalism at Ball State. “Soccer means the world to me. I wrote on our Senior Night a little letter to the team. They’re the reason I’d come to practice. I wouldn’t have wanted to wake up early on a Saturday morning and be ready to play soccer and games without them.”