Crown Point soccer player Sneiderwine a force on the field

CROWN POINT | Coming from a long line of soccer players, it's no surprise how Crown Point's Zach Sneiderwine has developed his skills on the field.

Kim, his oldest sister, played goalkeeper at Merrillville while older brother Nick graduated from Crown Point in 2006. During Tuesday's practice, Zach was even wearing Nick's old shoes from when he played.

The Bulldogs' junior will be wearing these time-tested "kicks" on Saturday at Kuntz Stadium in the Class 2A state semifinal.

"I learned how to play goalkeeper from her," said Sneiderwine, who leads the Bulldogs with 14 goals this season. "My brother liked to shoot on me, but every once in a while he let me shoot on him. He taught me how to shoot the ball, do some moves and pretty much all the basics. He's my inspiration. I use his shoes every game I play."

When Sneiderwine was in seventh grade, Nick would let him play in scrimmages with him and other kids who were five or six years older. Playing against older players who had better developed skills was an obvious challenge -- yet an obvious benefit to Sneiderwine.

"It was pretty difficult because they always threw me around," he said. "It helped that I was building muscle up and getting used to the physical tackles, scoring goals and people pushing me."

On the field, Sneiderwine's most obvious physical aspect is his speed. That makes his scoring ability around the net dangerous. Consequently, he's drawn man marks and double teams for most of this season.

"He's incredibly fast and gives defenders a very hard time," Crown Point coach JR Rosenbaum said. "He came in as a sophomore completely unknown, so he was able to take some people by storm with his speed, got some early goals (17 last season) and got a lot of momentum going. For a striker, so much of it is getting that momentum and confidence."

Last season, Sneiderwine admitted the bulk of his success was based solely on speed and not a lot on skills. He knew that had to change if he and the Bulldogs were going to be successful this season.

"Last year, I was just a fast player, but this year I'm a skilled player that just so happens to be fast," he said. "Having two or three people (defend) me made me realize that speed isn't everything."

Sneiderwine, who also ran track for the Bulldogs for the past two seasons, is ready to help lead Crown Point into the first boys soccer state finals appearance in school history Saturday against Columbus North.

He's still pinching himself a bit at the thought of playing on the grandest stage, however.

"I can't believe that it's coming true," he said. "The day after we won semistate was just unreal. It felt good to be a soccer player."