Kennedy Yost finds her purple patch

Kennedy Yost, barely five feet tall but even then a terror with a soccer ball at her feet, had just turned 15 years old when she made a visit to Oregon's campus in Eugene.

In the world of soccer recruiting, especially at the Pac-12 level, it was getting late in the game. She was just beginning her sophomore year of high school and was still uncommitted.

The clock was ticking, the pressure was increasing. Programs, including the Ducks, wanted to know her decision. She couldn't yet legally drive a car, but coaches needed to know: was she in or was she out?

Hers is a tale both enlightening and cautionary, and comes at a time when players who have not yet started the eighth grade are committing to play soccer at Texas.

Recruiting younger and younger children, because that's really what they are, is an epidemic across most girls' sports these days. Soccer just seems to have mastered it, taking it from patient zero and spreading it further and further down the age-group chain.

Yost's is a story of how a commitment to Oregon turned into her enrolling at Colorado, and how she ended up at Montana one semester later.

But it really won't be a story at all, at least that part of it. She has a lot to say about the entire process of going from one school to another to another, and why and how it all happened. She just doesn't want it out there.

"It's touchy," says Yost, a 5-foot-4 forward from Pocatello, Idaho, who spent a good portion of her high school years living with relatives in Salt Lake City for the better soccer opportunities.

Yost joined the Montana soccer team in late January after spending the fall semester at Colorado. An ankle injury did not allow her to get on the field with the Buffaloes.

No part of her story, from committing to Oregon to going to Colorado to ending up at Montana, should overshadow this: Yost was identified as a Pac-12 talent likely as early as an eighth grader.

"I went to some ID camps, and (Oregon's coaches) came and watched me play a lot," she says. "I guess they saw enough that they gave me an offer.

"I didn't know what I wanted, but I thought I wanted to go there. It was normal at the time. All my teammates were picking where we were going to go."

When she says "it was normal at the time" today, it comes across as judgmental, like even an 18 year old can see the flaws and potential hazards of a recruiting process that continues to push the envelope.

After decommitting from Oregon, Yost spent one semester -- last fall -- at Colorado. More snippets of stories she doesn't want revealed rise to the surface, until arrives the one line that summarizes everything succinctly. "It wasn't a good fit," she says.

Maybe one day she'll be comfortable with telling all -- the underbelly of the recruiting process, the dog-eat-dog nature of Power 5 programs, how last fall she began questioning if she even wanted to keep playing college soccer at all -- but for now she is at peace. At feels at home.

"It wasn't the level of soccer at the Pac-12 that got to me, it was the environment," she says. "I knew if I was going to keep playing, I needed to go somewhere that I would be happy."

It could be a credo for the Griz soccer program: Give me your tired, your frustrated, your huddled players yearning to rediscover their love of the sport. Send these, the program-less, the recruiting-scarred to me, I lift my lamp beside the maroon door.

Don't get the wrong idea. Montana coach Mark Plakorus recruits just like those in the Pac-12, doggedly and tirelessly. But he does it without the let me know by the end of the day or I'm moving on to someone else pressure. It's not his nature, and it wouldn't serve his program.

He also operates not so much in the second tier as much in the second wave. He gets commitments from juniors and players who are early in their senior year of high school.

And then he trains them to beat the Power 5. Walk by his office and you'll see the fresh hides of Iowa and Purdue hanging on his wall.

Plakorus gets to every club tournament he can, so of course he knew about Kennedy Yost. Everybody did.

"I remember watching her play with her club teams in Utah," he says. "I always thought she was a very dangerous, dynamic, attacking player. She liked to take people on and get at goal."

Soccer is serious business in the Yost family. Chandler played at Southern Utah. And the Yosts made the family decision after Kennedy's sophomore year at Century High in Pocatello that she needed to move in with relatives in Utah, where she could be closer to high-level club teams.

"I have an aunt and uncle who live in Salt Lake City. I moved my guardianship over and everything, and moved away from home at 15," she says.

"I had been driving a couple of hours for practice for a year and a half, and it got kind of hard. After I moved, I was a lot closer to my club team. I was able to make every single practice and every single game, but I called my mom a lot."

In Yost's mind, when she thought about college soccer, it was always Pac-12 or nothing. It's why Plakorus's attempts to reach out were met with silence. Montana? That's not the big time.

She committed to Oregon as a sophomore. And later ended up changing her commitment to Colorado. And didn't stay in Boulder more than a semester.

"That's the problem with committing so young. I just didn't know. I didn't look into things enough for what I needed for those four years," she says. "It's four years of your life, so I had to do what was best."

After moving to Salt Lake City, Yost played at Woods Cross High as a junior and senior. She scored 32 goals as a junior to rank second in the state and had 105 for her prep career.

She played at ECNL Nationals in 2015 with the Utah Avalanche, and after the 2015 fall high school season, she returned home. She graduated last spring from Century High.

Ready to start her college career, she suffered an ankle injury last summer. A couple of practices into preseason last August at Colorado, she got slid again and had the other one taken out, which sent her to the sideline. She wasn't projected to redshirt, but she had to.

"Once you get to that high of a level, it can turn into a hard environment," she says. "Everyone is fighting to get into the top 15 on the team. Watching from the sideline made it kind of tough."

Maybe because of the direction soccer recruiting is headed, with players making decisions at a younger and younger age, December brings with it an annual reevaluation.

"Around the end of the year, I usually get a handful of releases from kids who are looking for a new program," says Plakorus. "We were one of the schools Kennedy put on her release that she wanted to get permission to talk to."

All those times Plakorus stands on the sidelines at club tournaments, looking for his next class or two of players, those on the field are keeping track themselves.

Yost may have rebuffed Plakorus's earlier recruiting attempts, but that didn't mean she didn't notice.

"I remember always seeing him on the sidelines, and when you're transferring, it's easier if the schools you want to go to have seen you play before. Otherwise, how would they know if they want to take you in?" she asks. "He had seen me play a lot growing up."

The recruitment took hardly any time at all. Upon receiving the release, Plakorus reached out to Yost. They talked at length, she visited, she took a few days to think about it, she said yes.

"I knew Montana was one of the best in the Big Sky, and I still wanted to play at a high level. Then when I spoke to Mark and got to know him, it was easy," says Yost.

"I like how passionate he is about the team and how he takes care of his players. We're his main focus. And he was interested in getting to know me more than just wondering how many goals I've scored. I liked what he stood for and felt like I would enjoy playing for him and working hard for him."

In her still searchable online bio at CUBuffs.com, Yost last season listed among her off-field likes both tumbling and running. She no longer needs to do either, at least as far as it relates to her search for the right college soccer program.

After being in a spin cycle since the day she committed to Oregon, she plays now with solid ground under her feet. No more running, except on the field. And she's learned that Pac-12 is a designation, not always a destination. It's finding the right fit that matters.

University of Montana Athletics

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