Harding enjoys busy fall in soccer, football

Heading into his senior year, Tippecanoe soccer player Preston Harding had a conversation he didn’t think he would have.

He knew that soccer success was a very good probability. But back in August, an injury to Owen Baileys, the returning kicker on the football team, sent the Red Devil athlete into action. Harding’s Friday nights would become very busy the next several months.

Harding, who is 48/53 on extra points and a perfect 1/1 on field goals, is ready to help lead the Red Devils into the postseason this weekend. After a bye week due to being the #2 seed, Tipp hosts a playoff game at the stadium this Friday night. 

It is difficult enough for student athletes to balance everything on their plate, but for Harding, staying at the top of his game in two sports is even tougher.

“I just try to stay focused on what I am doing at the moment,” Harding said last week during one of the football practices at the stadium. “On a Tuesday, for example. I have football practice which I have to be focused in, then a soccer game later that night.”

As for soccer, the Red Devils fell short of an MVL championship but did advance to the district finals before falling to Badin 2-0.

“At the start of the year, nobody thought we would be great with losing the senior class from last year, but I was happy at how we did this year,” Harding said. “Obviously, we came up short in the important MVL games, but it was still a good season for the team.”

He also admitted that the low expectations from everyone else added fuel to another good season for the Red Devils.

“That was the mentality all year, just go out and do our best and prove those people wrong,” he said. Harding will always be recognized as one of the five seniors this year who were part of the 2023 state championship team at Tippecanoe. “It’s incredible to be in a program where year after year, you have that goal of state, and a realistic goal of making it to a state final.”

On the football field, Tipp did something this year that they have never done in their long football history: finished 10-0 in two consecutive regular seasons.

“It’s really cool to make school history, especially at a school with a strong program year after year,” he said.

But for Harding, it almost didn’t come about. It was a conversation he had with Tipp football coach Matt Burgbacher in August that changed his whole fall schedule.

“I wasn’t planning on playing football up to two weeks before the season,” he said. “When Owen got hurt in the Red-White scrimmage, I had talked to coach Burgbacher here at the stadium when we were taking our team pictures for soccer. He asked me what I thought about coming back.”

“I told him absolutely. It is a really cool thing to be out here on Friday nights, it’s nothing like soccer with a packed stadium, and when I started thinking about that, I knew I was all in.”

Harding knows the kicking tradition at Tipp is very rich, with NFL-quality kicker Ben Sauls and current Bowling Green kicker Jackson Kleather having come before him and Baileys. It does add a bit of pressure on him to succeed.

“Yes, a little bit,” he said. “People are used to, for the last eight years, a kicker coming out here and knocking down a 40 if we need it, so it adds a little bit of pressure.”

For Harding, his career is winding down, and while he does not plan to kick after high school, it is about soaking up the memories and the chances this team may have over the next few weeks in the postseason.

“We are trying to turn it up a notch and get rid of the mistakes that we make on Tuesday or Thursdays at practice and weed those out so you can be perfect because that is what it is going to take in the playoffs.”

Harding plans to study aerospace engineering and hopes to attend The Ohio State University.