Chance meeting helps local goalie find new home

WASILLA — A chance meeting with a former teammate helped Eli Tingstad find his home for the next two years.

Tingstad, a senior on the Wasilla High boys’ soccer team, has signed a National Letter of Intent to play soccer at Southwest Oregon Community College.

While visiting colleges in Oregon, Tingstad, Wasilla’s starting goalkeeper for the last three seasons, decided to check out the Coos Bay school. During his visit he ran into SWOCC sophomore Tillerman Kroon, a former teammate of Tingstad’s at Wasilla.

“We ran into him, and he sold me on the school,” Tingstad said recently.

Tingstad said Kroon — a two-year soccer player at SWOCC — gave him a tour of the campus, showing him the dorms and facilities. Considering Kroon’s advice, and what he learned about the coaching and academic opportunities, Tingstad said SWOCC was his choice.

Tingstad said he also considered Mesa State University in Grand Junction, Colo., and Clark College in Vancouver, Wash.

Tingstad is the third sibling in his family to play soccer at WHS — joining older brother Tylor and older sister Tabor.

Tingstad is also following in the path of Tabor, who signed to play at Corban College in Salem, Ore. His sister helped influence him to pursue this opportunity, but it’s long been his goal to play college soccer.

One of six siblings, Tingstad said soccer is certainly a family sport. He said his parents introduced the children to soccer, and he followed his older brother on to the soccer field.

Wasilla head coach Blake Livingston knew Tingstad long before Tingstad entered the program as a freshman. Livingston called the senior a “gym rat.”

“This has been his goal ever since I’ve known him,” Livingston said.

During Tingstad’s three years as Wasilla’s starting goalie, Livingston has watched his keeper grow into a college-caliber athlete.

“I think he’s ready for the next level,” Livingston said. “He’s earned that opportunity.”

Livingston said a number of attributes have allowed Tingstad to have success. Tingstad is mentally tough, Livingston said, he has the work ethic and is fundamentally sound. But Livingston said Tingstad possess something else that separates him from other goalies — instincts.

“Superior goalies just kind of know where the ball’s going to go when it comes off a guy’s foot or his head,” Livingston said. “Eli just seems to be there.”

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.