SCASA proudly presents 2023 WSASA Male Player of the Year

2023 Washington State Adult Soccer Association (WSASA) Male Player of the year award

My soccer journey began in 1996 when I was 5 years old. By then my older brothers had been playing for a year or two, so my introduction came even earlier than that. I spent U-5 to U-11 playing for various Marysville Rec teams such as Future Force, Boys of Thunder, and the Yellowjackets. For as long as I can remember soccer was all that I wanted to do! I spent every day at recess in elementary school organizing a soccer game until it became the thing to do. The only gap in that came when I broke my arm rollerblading during the Turkey Shoot tournament, which I hid the severity from my parents for 2 days because I didn’t want to risk them not allowing me to play in the tournament. 

Although I had a passion for scoring goals, and voiced that desire endlessly to my coaches, my defensive instincts and natural skill always left me to anchor the defense for any team I played for. U-12 I was asked to try out for a couple local select teams after playing the prior Spring season with a lot of local select players. I spent U-12 to U-17 playing for Kelly and Cherie Hooks on various select teams such as Lakewood Legacy, Marysville Force, and Pacific Premier. Cherie took me under her wing, and really developed me as a defender and got me ready to thrive wherever I played. I rounded out my Select Soccer days playing U-18 for Lakewood Legacy, and U-19 for Washington Rush. I was team Captain for about 5 years in that span. I also guest played a lot of summer tournaments with my Brothers teams throughout the years.

I played High School Soccer for Marysville-Pilchuck for 3 years. I captained the JV team to a 1-loss season. Then started and played every minute on a team that went undefeated all the way into the state semifinals where we lost in PKs.

After high school my long-time coach Cherie Hooks invited me and some of my former teammates to play on a SCASA adult coed team with Susan Cole. After a couple of years playing on teams organized by either Susan or Cherie, I began managing my own co-ed teams and men’s open teams with a mix of players I met through those teams, players I played with growing up, and players I met since joining SCASA. I have organized the Average Joes and a handful of other teams ever since, and when I turned 30 I joined Susan again playing for Offsides. 

An achilles injury in 2021 forced me to spend an extended period of time playing goalkeeper for the first time in my life, and I spent all of 2023 playing full time goalkeeper for Offsides and Average Joes.

For WSASA Male Player of the Year I give you Blair Nobach.  Congratulations Blair!