Student-Athlete of the Week: Kiera Flanagan

With 10 goals and 2 assists in five games, speedy senior Kiera Flanagan has led the Niwot girls soccer team to a 5-0 start to the 2021 season, and a 36-4 scoring advantage over its opponents. In three of her starts, the fourth-year varsity forward and captain has scored multiple goals, including four at Roosevelt on May 13. At mid-way through the short season, she is the leading scorer in the Longs Peak League, and sixth overall in Class 4A.

For second-year head coach Jenna Machado, Flanagan is the type of player that you build an offense around.

"She's phenomenal," Machado said after one of Flanagan's multi-goal games. "You can give her the ball and she can dribble through any hole. She's really hard to stop, and she and Maddie [Borncamp] are really hard to stop when they're together. So I switched to a three-five-two formation at the beginning of the season because of Maddie and Kiera."

With her technical ability and high soccer I.Q., Flanagan isn't just a scoring machine herself. She is often working just as hard to create opportunities for her teammates, Machado said.

"If I told her to just take the pass and go score, she could do that, but she doesn't. She's very generous. Her best friends, who aren't in the starting lineup, she cheers them on whenever they score. She almost gets more excited than when she scores."

In fact, Flanagan's positive mentality and selflessness bring as much to the team as her outsized scoring talent, Machado continued.

"As a previous player, when I've played with players who've been very good, oftentimes they've not been the nicest necessarily. Kiera might be one of the nicest players I've ever met... That's why I think she's going to do so well in college. Because she's always competitive, but she doesn't bring down others to make herself feel better."

Late last year, Flanagan fulfilled a longtime goal when she signed a letter of intent to play soccer for the University of Denver, giving her even more time in the sport she has loved her entire life. Or almost her entire life.

"I've been playing soccer since I was three, but, it's funny, my parents never really thought I'd go far," she said. "I was the kid who liked to pick flowers on the field."

But once she discovered it was more fun to chase the ball, soccer started occupying more and more of her time. During high school, Flanagan balances playing for Niwot, her competitive club team, and training with a sports performance coach in Denver. She also practices footwork and other technical skills on her own. All of that soccer training can be time-consuming for the busy student, but the investment clearly pays off on the scoreboard.

"Something that is a strength of mine is either picking my head up and finding like through balls to my teammates, or staying calm in front of goal," she said. "Because I feel like it can be easy to just whack the ball, and really miss, but I try to keep my cool."

Flanagan knows her calm demeanor and generous nature might be challenged in the rough-and-tumble world of NCAA Division I women's soccer, so she has also been focusing on improving the non-technical aspects of her game this season.

"I'm playing with a lot of girls that are bigger than me," the future Pioneer said. "So I'm working on winning balls and going one-on-one, and getting a little tougher mentally."

Off the field, Flanagan excelled in her mixed load of I.B. and A.P. courses at Niwot, and especially liked reading Beowulf in Mr. Pankonin's A.P. literature class. She also counts Mrs. Ranglos as a favorite teacher. She hasn't yet picked a specific major at DU, but she plans to attend dental school and become an orthodontist.

In her free time, Flanagan enjoys playing with her doodles Lola and Misha, and is working hard to improve her surfing and wakeboarding.