Tori Penn doesn't like to lose.
Quite frankly, she doesn't really even know what it's like to lose.
Three years playing on the
Westminster (Atlanta, Ga.) girls soccer team, three state titles. It's just as easy as that for the team's star striker.
"I try to keep the mindset that you can't expect to win, you've just got to go out there and earn it," said Penn, who has scored a goal and provided an assist in all three state championship games. "Me and my teammates try to stress that a lot on the team that working together and wanting it is more important than expecting to win."
Longtime Westminster girls soccer coach Clark Meyer, who has led the program to five straight state titles, has been impressed with Penn on and off the pitch over the years.
"We put a huge premium on getting the culture right and I think that's been a big part of our success," Meyer said. "She certainly works beautifully within our team culture. We talk about the difference between being a star and being a leader, where a star looks good compared to everybody else whereas a leader helps everybody else look good. She really is a great team player in that respect in the way that she relates to her peers and the way she works in training and just the kind of person that she is."
Over her first three years at Westminster, Penn has become quite the goal scorer. She tallied 24 as a freshman and 31 as a sophomore. This past season, Penn put in 27 goals to give her 82 for her illustrious career. That moved her into second place all-time for goals in program history.
Tori Penn has piled up 82 goals in three seasons at Westminster.
Photo by: Dennis Carter
"She's a complete striker and she finishes beautifully," Meyer said. "She the kind of player who can be a poacher in the box and finish opportunities that other people set up for her. But she's also got the speed and aggressiveness to be the kind of person to throw a move at midfield and get in behind the defense and they just won't catch up to her.
"I've been doing this for 22 years and she's the second attacking player that I would point at and say, that's the streak of ruthlessness that really makes her special."
Penn, 17, is indeed special on the field and is garnering respect for herself at the national level as one of 250 high school juniors to earn the distinction Allstate All-American.
Penn, who possesses great speed and vision, has become such a polished soccer player since first starting the sport at 4 years old.
Even at a young age, Penn was a goal scoring machine. She garners plenty of attention from opposing teams.
"If we've got an opponent that has double or tripled up, Tori is smart enough -- and there's not a whole lot I have to tell her -- but we'll talk tactically about using her teammates around her and she can play that game beautifully, too," Meyer said. "She can play like a center midfielder where she gets the ball and distributes and gets the ball and distributes."
When in a pinch, Penn always has a couple of go-to moves that help her out.
"Usually I'll play in the center but if I'm out wide, I like to cut in," Penn said. "If I'm on the right side, I like to cut in with my left foot and then shoot. If I'm playing center forward, I like to turn and go after the keeper."
Penn always feels comfortable on the field knowing she has an amazing and talented set of teammates working alongside of her.
"I know a lot of my teammates go to the same club that I do, not necessarily on the same team at Tophat (Soccer Club), but we all go to the same club so we all have the same possession style," Penn said. "It just makes practices and games that much better just working together and chemistry with everyone. The more you know players, the easier it is working with them."
Early on in her high school career, Penn was attracting plenty of interest from major Division I schools. As a sophomore, she narrowed her list down to three: Georgia, Vanderbilt and Alabama.
"In the end, I just kind of chose Georgia because of the environment and the coaches and kind of the team," Penn said. "I liked it the best."
Meyer -- who has known Penn since she was born, having worked with her mom -- is a great leader to her teammates and a dream player for any coach.
"She's super easy to work with," Meyer said. "She's quite humble. She's a great teammate. She's a little shy but absolutely lethal on the field."
