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Dynamic Styrczula stars for Hillies

Thursday, October, 18 By Alan Siegel

Jami Styrczula is so used to people butchering her last name, she offers a three-syllable guide to getting it right. Stir-choo-la.

"It's way easier to say it phonetically," said Styrczula, whose father David's side of the family is Polish. "But everybody wants to pronounce that Z."

It's OK, the Haverhill High senior insists. They'll figure it out soon enough.

"You're going to see it in the paper (anyway)," she joked. Merrimack Valley Conference opponents | and erroneous public address announcers | should know her name by now. The center midfielder has 15 goals for the Hillies (8-3-2), who are in line to qualify for the tournament after missing it last fall.

"She's the best high school player I've seen," first-year Haverhill coach Fred Tarbox said.

"She has so much fire in her," fellow tri-captain Moire O'Mullane said.

Speed, power and finesse. Styrczula has all three, Tarbox said.

In a 2-1 season-opening victory over Central Catholic, she scored both Hillie goals. The first, she blasted in from 30 yards out. The second, she stole the ball and shook three defenders before firing a shot past the goalie at close range.

"I was just in awe," said Tarbox, whose team beat the Raiders for the first time this decade. "She's a threat to whoever they play," Andover coach Meghan Matson said.

Styrczula, for one, isn't ready to take herself so seriously. After all, while her teammates at Seacoast United were already ensconced in the college recruiting process this summer, the 2006 MVC Small Player of the Year was just starting.

"I'm bad at the whole college search," she said. "I was too nervous, too timid at first."

Styrczula, who is ranked 24th in her class of 486 at Haverhill, will have plenty of options. The tri-captain is currently considering Assumption, Bates and Amherst.

It's been a rewarding, yet startling process for her mother Robin, who remembers Jami's formative days on the soccer field. Even then, coaches saw potential.

"I wasn't expert enough to know the difference," said Robin, who grew up in Southern California. "At 5, they all look the same."

The years may have sped by like one of her daughter's powerful shots, but Robin is enjoying Jami's last high school season. Her younger daughter, Shannen, a freshman at Haverhill High, also made the varsity team.

"It's a mother's dream come true," said Robin, who works as a paraprofessional at the Moody School in Haverhill. But, she added, the whole thing is, "Very bittersweet."

On the night of July 14, 2003, her 17-year-old son Cory had just finished playing a pickup basketball game when he and a group of friends decided to go to the store. While walking on Route 125 in Ward Hill, a car struck and killed him. Understandably, the road hasn't always been smooth for Jami. "She grew up fast a couple years ago," Robin said. "She's always been more mature than the average (teenager)."

Along with college applications, homework and soccer, Styrczula works the deli counter one day a week at Johnnie's Place, the market owned by Haverhill High boys soccer coach John Coppola.

Regardless of the situation, she always seems to go full bore. O'Mullane, who has lived on the same street as Styrczula since the two were in third grade, said even board-game sessions can get intense.

"You can't play Jami," O'Mullane said with a laugh. "She'll kill you."

Tarbox has seen that type of drive before. When he was assistant coach at Andover from 2004-06, he watched Emily Pallotta | who's now a sophomore at Boston University | star for the Golden Warriors.

Styrczula, he said, has a chance to become that kind of player.

"Her athleticism is incredible," Tarbox said. "She's just so good."

Now if everybody could just learn how to say her name.