MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia women’s soccer coach Nikki Izzo-Brown has announced that Emilie Charles (Huntington) and Jessica Kasacek (Canterbury, Conn.) will join the squad for the 2020 season.
Charles, a two-time West Virginia Girls Soccer Player of the Year, comes to Morgantown after playing for coach Andy Wilson at Cabell Midland High. The forward scored 173 career goals for the Knights, a West Virginia state record. She became the first female soccer player to earn allstate All-American honors following her junior season. She was also named the West Virginia Girls Soccer Gatorade Player of the Year and was named a Heisman High School Finalist after leading the Knights to an 18-5-1 record and the Class AAA state championship in 2018.
A four-time first team all-state and two-time West Virginia Sports Writers Player of the Year honoree, Charles broke the West Virginia record for the most goals scored in a single season in 2019, after netting 51 goals in 19 games. Charles will graduate as the Salutatorian for her class in May and earned WVU’s Bucklew Scholarship, an award given to 20 high-achieving West Virginia students that have been accepted to the university.
“I’m looking forward to Emilie’s arrival on campus,” Izzo-Brown said. “She is an incredibly motivated and hardworking young lady on the field and off of it, so her potential is unlimited. She is a versatile player that can step into multiple positions. I am so happy that such a successful student-athlete will be joining the Mountaineer family.”
Kasacek played three seasons for coach Matt Cameron at Oakwood Soccer Club, where she started 19 matches for the club’s U-18/19 squad and 32 for the U-16/17 program. She earned a clean sheet in all 14 starts in net during this past season. She helped Woodstock Academy to an appearance in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) Class L State Tournament in her freshman season.
Kasacek, a member of the National Honor Society, will graduate from Woodstock Academy in May and plans to major in exercise physiology.
“We are so excited to welcome Jess to the West Virginia family,” Izzo-Brown said. “She is a great shot blocker that comes to us with a plethora of experience. We are so excited to start working with her and we feel she is an excellent fit for our program. She wanted to be in an environment that she is going to be challenged every day and I love that about her.”
