Olympic dream drives Barons' "First Lady of Hockey"

By Phillip Brents
Posted Dec. 8, 2004

Photo: Kelly and Brent Nash

If Bonita Vista High School sophomore Kelly Nash’s inner will is as relentless ash her play on the rink, there is no doubt that she will achieve her goal.

"I’ve really wanted to play in the Olympics since about a year after I started playing hockey," said the soft-spoken and slightly-built 15-year-old from Chula Vista who otherwise has wreaked havoc on the playing surface (be it roller or ice) since she started playing the game eight years ago.

Nash, whose name is instantly familiar to anyone who has competed in the upper echelon of the Tour Pacific Cup and NARCh competitive playing circuits, is a current selection of the United States girls under-16 national select camp. She broke into the uner-16 selection camp at age 14.
Before that, she made the under-14 selection camp at age 13.

"I think if I keep working at it, there’s a possibility for 2006 but I am looking more toward 2010 if I keep working hard," Nash said of her Olympic aspirations.

Nash will compete with teammates from the under-16 national select camp during a holiday tournament in Connecticut that will draw many of the top women’s programs from throughout the nation, including the Los Angeles-based Cal-Selects.

"I love playing ice. We got to go to Lake Placid. We trained with Olympic and college coaches. It’s more fun to play against people who are better," she said.

Nash began to make headlines almost from the start once she put on a pair of skates, put on a pair of gloves and picked up a hockey stick. She became the first female player to win a house league scoring title at Chula Vista RollerSkateLand. She helped the Hosers take third place at the NARCh Finals her first year while playing in the Atom Division (under-eight age group). Two years later, the Hosers placed fifth in the Mite Division. Last season, she played for the Anaheim Mission Bulldogs, who went as far as the quarterfinals in the Pee Wee Division at the NARCh Finals.

Neighbors spread kind words of warning when the Nash family moved back to Chula Vista after a brief stay in LaVerne where the core of roller hockey talent was closer than two hour freeway trips northward from San Diego County.

A natural-born athlete, Nash went out for Bonita Vista tennis during the fall sports season at Bonita Vista. She started out at the junior varsity level but quickly gained promotion to the varsity squad. She compiled an undefeated 9-0 varsity record but did not have enough matches to qualify for the league championship tournament.

Her mother, Elsie, gets right to the point when talking about what makes her daughter excel on the court. "She’s relentless. She knows the floor. She’s very strategic in how she goes about the game. She’s a play-maker. You see that from the stats. She can score goals but it also includes assists," Elsie Nash said.

But it is not just the countless goals and assists she has racked up over the years that has made Nash stand out from the crowd. It is the refreshing attitude she brings to games. She plays without pressure despite the goals she has set for herself. Perhaps that is part of the reason for her success.

"I just like to have fun. I just like to go out there and have fun, to entertain the crowd," she said.

In her first three games of varsity high school roller hockey in the CIF/Metro Conference, she has done both. She had one goal and six assists in her varsity debut to help lead the Barons’ 18-0 season opening victory against Castle Park on Nov. 29. She racked up five goals and one assist in a 19-0 shutout victory against Chula Vista on Dec. 6 to give her eight goals and 17 points in three games to rank third in league scoring.

Joe Noris, a former NHL and WHA pro who coached Nash five years with the Hosers, said he has no doubt that the Barons’ "First Lady of Hockey" will succeed.

"She’s just the greatest. She’s got an incredible future in terms of getting a college scholarship and making the Olympic team," Noris said. "She’s got the three main elements of a great athlete: quick feet, soft hands and fire in the belly. Her strong point is her great rink vision. It’s incredible how she can see the rink."

Nash has repeatedly proven in just three games that she can more than keep up — or keep a step ahead — of her physically more intimidating teammates and opponents. In fact, sometimes her teammates have trouble keeping up with her speed and deft passing. Watching her on the court is almost imagining what it would be like to have an NHL player drop down to play at the minor league level.

But Kelly is only half of the story in the Nash household. She has to owe the inspiration to her current success to older brother Brent, a senior, on the Barons team. Brent started playing youth roller hockey at nine. A year later, Kelly, then 7, wanted to play the same game she enjoyed watching her brother play.

Both excelled immediately at the game, according to their mother, Elsie Nash. "A school flyer got them into playing roller hockey. They took to it immediately. That was it for them. I like to say that Kelly takes after her brother. They never wanted to play any other sport," Elsie Nash said.

Brent, who played as a freshman on the Barons CIF team before the family moved out of the area, most recently played on the LaVerne Cobras Midget Division team. As a ninth-grader, he scored the first goal in Bonita Vista’ still-thrilling-to-recall overtime victory against Scripps Ranch in the 2002 Kiwanis Cup championship game.

Both Brent and Kelly play on the same line with Bonita Vista this season, and both have an uncanny feel for one another on the court. In the Barons’ season-opening win, Brent scored three goals and three assists. After three games, he had eight goals and 12 assists -- five points behind little sister to rank fifth in league scoring.

"We’ve been playing eight years. We just know how each other plays," Brent Nash said. "I don’t really care about playing any other sport. I just enjoy playing on the same team with my sister. We both just have fun out there."

During the Barons’ victory against Chula Vista, brother and sister experienced a first — sitting in the penalty box together. Both parents, Elsie and Kevin, got a laugh out of that episode.

This will be the only time the two Nash siblings will have the chance to play together on the same high school team as Brent, 18, will graduate in June while Kelly will have two more years of high school eligibility ahead of her. Both are thus hoping for a very memorable 2004-05 season together.

"We’re hoping to win the league championship and maybe go undefeated this year," both said, nearly in unison.

Fast start
Through three games of the 200-4-05 CIF/Metro Conference season, five teams sported undefeated records. Joining Bonita Vista (3-0-0) in the unbeaten column were fellow Mesa League rival Eastlake (3-0-0), South Bay League leader Mar Vista (3-0-0) and North County front-runners Vista (3-0-0) and Westview (2-0-1).

Scripps Ranch, which last season posted a 22-0-0 record, found out from the onset of the season that the influx of six new teams to the conference has also brought in a new set of challengers after tying Westview 3-3 and dropping a 3-2 contest to Poway on a goal with 32 seconds left to play by Stephen Lockwood.

Westview received goals from six players – Ryan Aguirre, Anthony Sansone, Mark Baker, Drew Ness, Leo Scheller and Jason Diehl – in a 7-4 victory against previously unbeaten Rancho Bernardo on Dec. 6. Sansone scored twice in the game while both Diehl added two assists.