Tompkins Weekly

Dryden’s Phillips named All-American



Dryden alum Casey Phillips takes a free kick during his junior season. After scoring over 30 goals in 11 games this year, Phillips was named an All-American. Photo by John Brehm .

Being named an All-State and All-Region athlete are huge accomplishments for any high school student. Dryden soccer’s Casey Phillips went beyond that this year and received All-American honors after his final season, the highest honor a high school student-athlete can earn. It was absolutely deserved, as Phillips dominated the shortened season with 32 goals in just 11 games, averaging just under a hat trick per contest.

Phillips broke Dryden’s all-time scoring record during his junior year and only made his mark harder to catch by finishing his high school career with 108 goals. The future Binghamton University player discussed finding out he was an All-American.

“I found out from my head coach Laszlo Engel who talked to the New York state representative,” Phillips said. “I was keeping in touch with them. My dad was keeping in touch with them. [Lazslo] told my dad when he was coming home from somewhere, and he came in and had a bigger reaction than me because he told me and he was freaking out. That’s originally how I found out.”

Phillips was an All-State player in his junior season, but after COVID-19 shortened his senior campaign, he was unsure if postseason awards would even be given out.

“I didn’t even know that they were going to do a spring and fall season combined All-American thing,” Phillips said. “I knew that players [around the country] got it in the fall with the teams that played in the fall, so I really didn’t even know that it was an option at that point. But once I found out, it was pretty crazy.”

Making the jump from fourth-team All-State to All-American is significant, especially considering his offseason was greatly impacted by COVID-19. Phillips took it upon himself to improve before his senior season, and the hard work paid off.

“The main thing I’d say was training on my own,” he said. “We had summer workouts with Dryden guys that were trying to put together, and I was playing in Binghamton. I was doing strength workouts at my house because no gyms were open or anything. I was running and got a Peloton; I was doing that a lot. I really was just playing with my boys and Dryden and Binghamton as much as I could to touch a ball and train as much as I could.”

Phillips’ outstanding performance on the soccer field over the past few seasons led him to a Division I opportunity at Binghamton University. He’s already impressed his future coaches after committing to the school during his junior year.

“I believe my role freshman year is going to be an attacker,” Phillips said. “I can play anywhere, and when I first committed to Binghamton, they had me in mind as a defensive player. Then they started to watch me play a little bit more and they realized that they wanted me as an attacking player.”

Now, he’s just a few weeks away from proving he deserves that spot in the program as training will begin with his new team.

“I think we get on campus on the ninth, and then we start playing on the 10th,” Phillips said. “I know our first game is Colgate, but I don’t think we’ve fully released our schedule yet, which I’m still waiting on. Then, we’ve got a few exhibition games and then we get right into the season.”

Getting to play Division I soccer while being from what New York state considers a “small school” is a big deal. Additionally, he’s one of two Dryden soccer players going DI and is part of a larger group of players on the boys team who are set to play in college.

In addition to Phillips, TJ Oseid and Zackary Willson will be playing at Tompkins Cortland Community College, Siaosi Malepe will play at Alfred University, and Steven Morrow will run track at Alfred University.

“It means a lot, considering there’s not many people that come out of Dryden to play at the next level,” Phillips said. “Our soccer team this year had five guys going to play [at] the next level. Alex Brotherton [from the girls team] is going to play at the next level at Cornell. There are a few other girls, but I think this year is the first time Dryden had two athletes in any sport that have gone to play Division I in college in five years maybe, so that’s pretty cool.”

It was a special year for Dryden soccer. They took home an IAC Championship in the only postseason game available to them and finished the year 11-0. While they couldn’t test themselves in the Section IV tournament against the best Class B schools in the area, a successful season like this was a long time coming.

“It’s how long the boys have been playing together,” Phillips said. “We’ve been playing since we were 12 years old, probably earlier than that. But we have just played together forever. The team chemistry just makes a huge difference.”

All the individual accolades Phillips has acquired are very impressive, most notably his All-American honors, but when looking back at his high school career, his favorite memory is simply having a senior season with his lifelong friends among all the uncertainty. Soon, he’ll continue making memories at the DI level with Binghamton University.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *