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| Hubert O. Dabney Stadium, Home of the Jackets |
The Midfielder Is The School's All-time Leading Goal Scorer With 77, Including 12 This Season.
LEESBURG
-- Despite playing most of his career as a midfielder, Stephen Malinda
has accomplished quite a bit around the goal for Leesburg's soccer team.
Malinda,
18, earlier this season became Leesburg's all-time scoring leader and
currently has 77 goals. He also has equaled Leesburg's single-season
goal-scoring record, getting 27 goals in both his sophomore and junior
seasons.
Last year, Malinda may have shown his value to Leesburg's team when
forward Danny Delgado went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament
in a knee during the team's second practice of the season. Malinda moved
from midfield to forward and Leesburg's goal-scoring threat hardly
skipped a beat.
Now, Malinda is back at his more comfortable
midfield position, though he sometimes will move to forward. He has 12
goals and 14 assists for the season.
"God gave him the gift in his left foot, and there are plenty of colleges
out there looking for a left midfielder,'' Leesburg Coach Jason Gray
said about Malinda's possibility of playing beyond high school. "He is
playing midfield, but we are actually moving him around a little bit. If
we are playing a team with a weak right back, we will put his left foot
up there.''
But give Malinda his choice and he will play midfield.
"I
definitely feel a lot more comfortable at midfield,'' Malinda said.
"Forward is a good position because you get a chance to score a lot of
goals, but you are not in the game that much. In the midfield, you
control the center part of the game. It doesn't matter where I am
playing as long as we are winning.''
And Leesburg has been winning with a 9-5-2 record.
Malinda's
big left foot has also come into play on the football field, where he
has scored 99 points. He kicked 47-yard field goals twice in his career
and kicked a 55-yard field goal in practice.
In baseball, Malinda
is right-handed. An unusual combination of being a
left-footed/right-handed athlete, Malinda plays shortstop on Leesburg's
baseball team.
"I write right-handed and I throw right-handed,''
Malinda said. "I am the only person I know who is left-footed and
right-handed.''
Gray said Malinda came to him as a smart soccer player and goal scorer.
"He
is just level-headed,'' Gray said. "Somebody taught him at an early age
how to pick his shots. Somebody also taught him not just to kick the
ball really hard into the net. He has been taught on how to position the
ball and finish.''
Gray said it is obvious that Malinda would rather play in the midfield area.
"He is a lot better facing people. He likes to see everything,'' Gray said.
"I
can see him playing at the next level as the left-side mid. He loves
facing the goal, being in front of it. For him, to be facing the goal,
playing forward, we have to depend on the long ball or the through ball
[to get it to Malinda] and that is not always there with good
high-school teams.''
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