Brittany Kindzierski spread the offence around for the St. Albert Impact as the Edmonton District Soccer Association’s female player of the year.
Thirty-three of Kindzierski’s 43 goals were scored with the Impact 4 (Murphy) division 1A team and the last one of the outdoor season was the winner in extra time in the Tier 1 provincial final.
“I had a coach (Rick Haxby) a few years ago that said, ‘BK, you can play 89 minutes in a game and do absolutely nothing but when we need that one goal you score in that last minute,’” Kindzierski said. “That’s just kind of stuck with me where I can be having the worst game ever but I just find myself in the right spots so sometimes I can’t defend, sometimes I can’t pass but for some reason I can score.”
Kindzierski’s 23 goals in the division 1A regular season was 12 clear over the next highest scorer for Golden Boot honours and at provincials the St. Albert striker racked up seven of the Impact’s 14 goals in four matches.
A stint in premier with Impact 1 (Spaidal) also produced 10 goals, on par with teammate Casey Paplawski’s contributions for fifth best in the scoring table and one back of Sheena Tracey’s Impact-leading total of 11.
Kindzierski’s scoring prowess varies from goal to goal.
“Sometimes it’s just stealing it off the defenders, other times it’s the rest of the team that does all the work and I’m that last touch into the net, just the right place at the right time,” said Kindzierski, who is equally adept at slotting the ball in the back of the net with either foot.
However, “I never score headers,” said the former NCAA Division 1 player with the UTEP Miners (2009-13) in El Paso, Texas, with ties to the Impact and Internazionale youth programs.
Kindzierski, 27, is coming off a 25-goal indoor campaign in premier with second-place Impact 3 as the division’s runaway scoring champion by a margin of 14.
Previous indoor scoring titles in premier were 18 with Impact 3 (2017-18), 24 (2016-17) and 23 (2015-16) with Impact 1 and 19 with Victoria 2 (2014-15).
In outdoor premier, Kindzierski potted 11 goals for Victoria 2 two years in a row before scoring eight times in 2017 during a short summer with Impact 1 premier after signing a pro contract with Medyk Konin, a Polish women’s soccer club based in Konin.
“I look at it more as a competition with myself,” Kindzierski said of her goal-scoring feats. “Last indoor I’ve never beat 30 goals for indoor and so this indoor I was like I’m going to beat 30 goals. It’s the same thing for the last outdoor. I’m going to look at what I had last outdoor and my goal is to beat that.
“I find when I go into those games I don’t look at it as, Oh I have to score for my team, I look at it as I have a goal for myself and it helps the team.”
Kindzierski’s player of the year award was not only “pretty awesome,” it was also a reflection of the impressive outdoor season by Impact 4, ranked second in division 1A at 10-2-2 (63 GF/22 GF) in wins/ties/losses behind FC Excelsior 1 (11-1-2, 41 GF/17 GA).
In the EDSA Tier 1 playdowns, Kindzierski’s hat trick was the difference in the 5-4 win by Impact 4 over division 1B Wind United (8-2-4, 28 GF/17 GA) for a provincial berth.
At provincials, Impact 4 finished 3-1 and in the 2-1 gold-medal match against Pinnacle FC of Calgary, Kindzierski opened the scoring early in the second half and then sealed the deal in the first half of extra time.
‘When you go to provincials, you always want to be the top team but another small piece of it is being the top Edmonton team (FC Excelsior 1 won bronze) so when we ended second in the league it’s kind of a little bittersweet and then you go to provincials and you end up on top it’s like the greatest thing ever,” Kindzierski said.
As for splitting time in division 1A and premier last year, “It’s two completely different games and the teams are also really different,” said the O’Leary High School alumna. “I personally just want to play as much soccer as I can so that’s why I do both and I enjoy both which is really good. If I didn’t like prem I would just stay with div one.”
Impact 1, the premier silver medallists at provincials and the runner-up for the division pennant by two points, was joined by Impact 2 (Bourbonnais/Brown) and Impact 3 (Murphy) in premier last year.
“Major league is obviously the highest level and then in premier we can all play major league, but we find we’re more occupied with jobs and lots of the girls coach so it’s still really competitive and we’re one of the top teams in that league,” Kindzierski said. “The top teams in div one could compete in premier and they would probably end middle of the pack to the bottom and the bottom teams in premier would probably win div one.”
The Impact women’s program increased to five outdoor teams this year with the addition of a division two squad.
"Every team we have is here to compete, but the nice thing is it’s also fun. Sometimes you find when you play higher levels everyone just wants to win, win, win, well, we still want to win, but it’s fun doing it which makes everyone keep coming back and that’s why there ends up being more and more women and more and more Impact women’s teams each year. People keep coming back because it’s a team atmosphere,” said Kindzierski, a youth adviser who has coaching experience at various levels of soccer and age divisions.
