Columbus East senior Chris Quisenberry is The Republic Boys Soccer Player of the Year. Mike Wolanin | The Republic
It was a record-setting year for Chris Quisenberry.
The Columbus East senior scored a single-season school-record 26 goals for the Olympians. He also finished as the school’s career leader with 61 goals and 31 assists.
“I’m glad that I ended on a good note,” Quisenberry said. “To get to go down in the record books is really nice. I really couldn’t have asked for a better career, honestly. I did what I was asked my freshman year, but I did more of what I wanted to do starting from sophomore year, forward. I played with a bunch of great players and saw some really good young talent coming through our program.”
Quisenberry is The Republic Boys Soccer Player of the Year for the second consecutive year after leading East to Hoosier Hills Conference and sectional titles for the third year in a row.
“I think we proved a lot of doubters wrong, coming from the fact that I think a lot of people probably thought we weren’t going to be as good this year,” Quisenberry said. “We managed to win sectional and go a little bit further than people thought we were going to. I think from a team standpoint, we grew a bunch, and we laid down a bunch of building blocks for a bunch of future players to hopefully build on.”
East coach Josh Gonsior thinks Quisenberry’s offseason work with his Alliance FC club team helped him become a better player this year.
“They play at a really high level,” Gonsior said. “They go to a lot of college showcases and play some of the top teams in the state and in the Midwest throughout their season, which starts after our season is done. Having that experience, and having an eye forward and looking to play somewhere in college, I definitely think he put in the work in the offseason to try to achieve his goals and ultimately help the team be successful. As much as he earns his individual awards, he just wants to win. He’s going to do what it takes to get the team to win. Our season was pretty successful as a result of that.”
Gonsior and the Olympians will miss the production that Quisenberry has brought to the team the past four years.
“I like the kid’s personality, honestly,” Gonsior said. “He’s a go-getter, and he’s always ready to go. He’s really super-involved. He’ll contact me and say, ‘Hey coach, I was thinking about doing this,’ and give me ideas, as well. The team is not a dictatorship. Ultimately, it’s their team, and he showed a lot of leadership in that. Obviously, I’m going to miss the ball being in the back of the net. Going forward, you don’t find goal scorers like that very often like Nick Hollencamp, who held the (scoring) record before. It’s been a player a decade, and so we’re going to have to score goals by committee and we’re perfectly OK with that. We’ve done it before, but having that reliable goal scorer is definitely going to be a challenge.”
At the same time, Gonsior also will miss Quisenberry’s competitiveness in practice.
“People are really going to have to step up and bring that same kind of intensity to training sessions for sure,” Gonsior said. “I think that intensity and the training session prepares us for a game, and often times, it’s hard to recreate that same kind of atmosphere that you get in a match in a training session. His intensity and his desire to win and get better every training session is really what we’re going to struggle with replicating next year without him.”
A couple weeks ago, Quisenberry resumed training with his club team and has been doing weight training and physical training.
“I’m trying to stay active as much as I can because I know it’s getting cold in the offseason a little bit,” Quisenberry said. “I’ve definitely been playing a lot of soccer so far and trying to stay as active as I can.”
A college decision could be coming soon. Quisenberry has offers from Clemson, North Carolina and St. Louis.
Quisenberry has visited those three schools and plans to visit Wake Forest in December and possibly South Carolina in the spring. He also took an unofficial visit to Michigan State.
“I went up there, and it was really nice, but I’m going to be honest — cold weather soccer is not for me at all,” Quisenberry said. “That was a big determining factor and the fact that I would probably have to redshirt. (Clemson, North Carolina and St. Louis) are my top three right now. My top two would be Clemson and St. Louis. I’m really leaning toward St. Louis right now.
Wherever he goes, he hopes to have the same kind of record-setting career he did in high school.
“I always aspire to break records and hopefully go down as one of the best in program history,” Quisenberry said. “A national championship would be nice, but I want to make sure that if I have a chance to go to the next step and play professional that I would really like to build on that. That has always been the goal since I was young. That would validate all the hard work going into it.”
The 2021 Republic All-Area Boys Soccer team:
Chris Quisenberry, Columbus East: The senior led the Olympians with 26 goals and had seven assists.
Korbin Hatcher, Columbus East: The senior led a defense that allowed only 17 goals in 18 games.
Kevin Galindo Sanchez, Columbus East: The senior scored five goals and led the Olympians with 10 assists.
Branson Young, Columbus East: The senior netted five goals and eight assists.
Pete Coriden, Columbus East: The junior recorded 54 saves and a 0.88 goals-against average.
Ben Sylva, Columbus East: The junior had two assists and helped a defense that allowed only 17 goals in 18 games.
Anthony Johnson, Columbus North: The junior netted one goal and two assists and helped lead a defense that allowed only 22 goals in 18 games.
Nathan White, Columbus North: The senior led the Bull Dogs with eight goals and had three assists.
Aidan Whitley, Columbus North: The sophomore scored five goals and led the Bull Dogs with 10 assists.
Will Holliday, Columbus North: The senior helped lead a defense that allowed only 22 goals in 18 games.
Oscar Ballinas, Columbus North: The junior recorded 56 saves and a 1.18 goals-against average.
Logan McIntosh, Jennings County: The senior led the Panthers with 12 goals and had nine assists.
Nathan Davis, Jennings County: The junior scored four goals and led the Panthers with 18 assists.
Honorable mention
Brown County: Wyatt Fox. Columbus East: Cam Trueblood, Dathan Wolf. Columbus North: Trent Liggett, Jesse Williams. Hauser: Aleck Lopez, Cephus Zulu Jr. Jennings County: Kai Henneke, Carson McNulty, Ian Sawyer.
