Paul VI junior Jonathan Leary is regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the state. He led the Eagles to a 9-4 record last year. (Mark Zimmaro)
As the current goalkeeper for the Paul VI High School boys soccer team, Jonathan Leary craves the opportunity to thrive in tense situations.
He’s ready for more of it, too, as he hopes to one day enter the nursing field.
“It ties into being a goalkeeper,” said Leary, who is entering his junior year at Paul VI in Haddonfield. “Nurses have these moments when it’s so high-pressure and you’re expected to perform. Of course, it’s not really the same [as a goalie], but having that pressure on me all the time has made me become good at dealing with it.”
Last soccer season, he had no choice.
Leary was a sophomore on a team that had come off four straight losing seasons. Paul VI alum Bob Stocklin took over as coach prior to the season and implemented a new system. He immediately put faith in his young goalie while his team made the necessary adjustments that would benefit the program in the long run.
“I knew about Jonathan’s freshman season as soon as I got hired,” Stocklin said. “We knew we had a good rising sophomore goalie, but to see him come in as a humble kid and want to earn his spot under a new coach was impressive. Then his play was even more impressive.”
Leary made 100 saves on the season including five games in which he made 10 saves or more. The Eagles won every single one of those contests, despite being heavily outshot. They ended up with a 9-4 record on the year, largely because of Leary’s heroics — even if he didn’t want to take credit. He was recognized as Third Team All Non-Public for his efforts.
“There would be games where I didn’t make as many saves, and I’d get mad at myself,” Leary said. “But sometimes, we would go into big games and we’d win. I’d think maybe I could have done better and made more saves, but sometimes that just meant my team performed well that game and I didn’t see as many shots.”
Stocklin said Leary’s humbleness and leadership are reasons he was chosen to be on the team’s leadership council this year, serving as an important liaison between his teammates and coaching staff.
“We want leadership to extend beyond the guys who are voted captains,” Stocklin said. “It’s guys that we meet with on a weekly basis and talk about the pulse of the team. We’re not asking anyone to rat anyone out, but help address things that the coaching staff might want to address.
“It’s a Catholic school, so it’s all about preparation for college – and that might be both on the field and how we run the program, and also asking them to be a little bit more mature than teenagers are often asked to do,” he continued. “All of them have responded so far this season with a great attitude, and the intensity has been fantastic.”
Leary’s work off the field is only trumped by his body of work on it. He had six shutouts last season in helping the Eagles compete with the best teams in South Jersey. He’ll be asked to do even more this year as the team took no shortcuts in stacking its schedule full of dangerous opponents. Leary and the Eagles are up to the challenge.
“I’m expecting a really good season out of us,” Leary said. “We have a lot of talent coming back. I think we have a very good chance of going far and having another winning season.”
After high school, Leary plans to follow his sister Madison’s footsteps and pursue a nursing career. His older sister commutes to the University of Rutgers-Camden, so she’s still around to be a mentor for her younger brother.
“Ever since I was young, I thought I might do something in the medical field,” Leary said. “It’s one of the best things. I looked into nursing and my sister is going to be a nurse, so it would be really fun if we ended up working at the same hospital. There would always be that chance. We have a really good bond and we’re close. I look up to her a lot as a person.”
His sister didn’t play soccer, instead opting for basketball in her youth. But Leary had soccer all figured out at an early age, even if goaltending wasn’t his original position.
“I was originally a striker but started goaltending as a 7-year-old,” Leary recalled. “It was really the sense of being the hero sometimes that made me fall in love with it. Having those 0-0 games and then making a crazy save, that’s what makes it really fun.”