Sep 29, 2025 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

Playing the goalie position in soccer naturally comes with stress and it takes a calm individual to handle it.

Peters Township’s Molly Kubistek certainly fits the bill.

She’s got a slow heartbeat, and it’s led to her having plenty of success.

Kubistek is the defending Moe Rosensteel Most Outstanding Player Award, given to the top WPIAL girls soccer player. She was the first goalie and first underclassmen to win the award.

The award is in honor of Moe Rosentsteel, a former Ringgold soccer standout, who died after being struck by lightning in 2019 shortly after graduation.

So far, Kubsitek is making a case for a repeat. She has four shutouts and has yielded only nine goals for the defending Class 4A champion Indians, who are in position to defend their title with a 5-0 record in Class 4A Section 2 and a 9-1-2 record overall.

“It’s been a lot of expectations and pressure to live up to, especially since I’m going to try and go for a repeat and win a lot of the awards I won last year,” Kubistek said. “I think I have a shot at it, but I have really good competition. There are players in the WPIAL that are awesome, and my teammates are awesome, so they’re competing with me for the awards too. I’m just excited to be part of it.”

Kubistek takes most of Peters Township’s free kicks, which is fairly unique for a goalie to do and is one of the team’s captains.

Along with winning the Rosensteel award, Kubsistek, a Cincinnati recruit, was named All-State and All-Region by United Soccer Coaches. She was the first Peters Township player to be named All-Region since 2019.

Kubistek had 14 shutouts last year, including one in the WPIAL Class 4A championship game that went to penalty kicks over Seneca Valley. She has 40 shutouts for her career.

She has a good feel for organizing her defense and knowing when to come off her line to try to either catch or punch a ball that’s been crossed into the box.

“I feel like I’m good with communication and I’m decent in the air,” Kubistek said. “I’m confident in myself when I go in the air. There are still things I need to work on like breakaways, but all goalies have that mental thing. It’s a mental position. You just have to be strong within yourself.”

Breakaways are tough for a goalie. They are the underdog every time. After all, it’s a 24-foot wide, eight-foot-tall goal they are trying to defend.

“My mom always says you’re the hero or the zero on breakaways as a goalie,” Kubistek said.

Along with being a shot-stopper, Kubistek can be a goal generator as well. That’s her aim when she takes the team’s free kicks. When an opponent is whistled for a foul, Kubsitek comes up from her goal and takes the free kick. It’s something she started doing her sophomore year a little bit, but it grew more into a full-time role starting last year.

“My junior year I came into the role from below the 50 (yard-line) and maybe down to the 35 and now I’m coming up to the 25 or 30 to take them,” Kubistek said. “It just shows that they have a lot of confidence in me, which I appreciate.”

Peters Township coach Pat Vereb said it’s uncommon for a goalie to venture down to take free kicks, but Kubistek’s strong, accurate leg is a weapon that was a no-brainer to use.

“She’s definitely one of a kind when it comes to free kicks,” Vereb said. “She gives us a good, long volley into the box with an opportunity to score a goal, so we take advantage of it.”

Kubistek enjoys the opportunity to get involved in the offense before retreating quickly back to her net.

“Hopefully I place it in the right spot every time, but if I don’t I try to drop back as quickly as I can, because if it doesn’t go to the right spot the other team can counter pretty quickly,” Kubistek said.