Staci Priestley loves Bella Celentano, but there were times during the 2022 season that her goalkeeper drove her nuts.
That’s because Celentano was not in goal for the Hamilton West girls soccer team, but on the sidelines recovering from severe knee injury to her tibia, femur and ligaments. It happened four games into Bella’s junior year, and once she was able to rejoin her team at games, she got antsy.
“I would come to practice, try and get as many touches as I could on the ball,” she said. “Even when I shouldn’t have, I was trying to get touches. I was always trying to get back on the field. I kept telling (Priestley) ‘I’m good, I can walk.’ She kept saying ‘No, sit back down!’ I’d be like, ‘Ooookaaaay.’”
“She started being like another coach for me,” Priestley said with a laugh.
They can laugh now, but it was a serious injury for Bella and a serious blow to Hamilton considering how good she is. Now in her fourth season as the Hornets starting keeper, Celentano recorded her 300th save earlier this year and has 327 for her career. The senior had 77 saves through Hamilton’s 2-5 start, and if she keeps up that pace, 400 could easily be in range.
In the season’s second game, she stopped an amazing 30 shots against Princeton. Celentano feels she is still working her way back into top form, but is loving every minute of it. She has a new zeal for the game after having it taken away from her.
“Being out made me actually realize how much I do love the game and how much I do want to be on the field,” she said.
The tall, wiry goalie brings not only athleticism to her position; she also provides leadership and the ability to get things organized in the back.
“She communicates really well, she talks to the defense, especially with marking up, making sure everybody is doing their job back there,” Priestley said. “She’s really good with her feet. She’s probably our best juggler on our team. She has a really good first touch. Not only is she good with her hands but she’s very good coming out and using her legs and stopping the ball defensively if her hands aren’t available for one on one situations.
“She’s just really good. On corner kicks she has the height to be able to punch the ball out when needed. She’s really aggressive, she doesn’t shy back from anything.”
It has been that way from the start. When she was a 4-year-old rec player, Bella’s aunt was also her coach and asked her niece if she would be interested in coming off the field and into the goal.
“You’re always trying new positions in rec so I was like, ‘Why not,’” Celentano said. “After a few games, she said, ‘You’re staying in goal.’ I kind of got thrown into it and that’s where I had to stay.”
Bella went from rec soccer to the GAK and then to the Hibernians, where she played for Debbie Carr’s ’04 Crush team despite being born in 2006.
“She started playing for me when she was around 11,” Carr said. “She’s tough as nails. She always had that goalie mindset. She’s not afraid.”
When Celentano arrived at West, her experience of playing up in travel ball paid immediate dividends. She was already used to playing against older competition.
“She immediately stepped up,” Priestley said. “You would never have known she was a freshman. You would have thought she was a junior or senior. She had confidence as if she was a three-year varsity player. Obviously during Covid that year, it was a little crazy for us. But she held her own and impressed all of us.”
Bella didn’t feel all that confident when she showed up for practice the first day. In fact, she didn’t know anything about the Hornets.
“I was just hoping to make the team,” she said. “It sounds horrible, but I never came to a game because I was worried about travel. And then I came and I was hoping I made the team. I got starting varsity goalie and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I did that?’”
Not only did she do it, she never lost the job except for injury. As a freshman, Celentano started three of Hamilton’s five games and made 51 saves. Thanks to playing with and against girls who were two years older in travel, she did not feel like a kid being thrown in the deep end for the first time.
However, the Hornets did not win as regularly as the Crush.
“It’s a whole different ball game,” Celentano said. “It was something I needed. In travel we were mostly winning, in high school it was a good way to break my ego down, honestly.”
While the losses did not make Celentano happy, they never wore her down to the point where she stopped trying. In fact, it made her even more determined.
“She is relentless,” Priestley said. “She continues to work hard for us. She gives nothing but 110 percent effort every game and every practice. She perseveres through every injury she has had to overcome and continues to work that much harder. She has given us nothing but heart and has left it all on the field.”
“I always tell the girls it’s not the goalie’s fault, it takes all 10 for the ball to get back to her and she knows that and she continues to do the best that she can when she gets constant fire. We play a defensive game for almost 60 out of her 80 minutes. It’s in her back end constantly and she’ll continue to get back up and work that much harder and that’s what we love about her.”
It’s pretty much a good news-bad news situation. The bad news is that the other team is constantly on attack, the good news — for Bella, anyway — is that she never gets bored.
“There are times you get frustrated, that’s just human,” she said. “But I really do try to be a leader. As a goalie you are the leader. You see everything on the field, and it also helps with having girls my age in the back, like Rachel Nixon and Maddie Harrison.”
Celentano made 134 saves as a sophomore, and stopped 65 shots in just four games as a junior. Although Bella feels she is still working her way back, Carr thought she looked good upon her return to the Crush last spring.
“I don’t think she missed a beat,” said Carr, who’s also a Notre Dame assistant. “She stepped on the field and came back the same way. When she’s in goal, I thought nothing is getting by her.
We played them on opening day this year and I texted before that game and told her, ‘You’re gonna keep them in games. Just leave it all on the field.’”
Celentano is looking to keep her career going, as she hopes to attend college in either North or South Carolina. If that doesn’t materialize, she is looking at Stockton.
“Right now it’s about playing soccer,” she said. “But if there is my dream school I’d be OK just playing a rec league.”
As long as she’s playing somewhere, she will be happy. That was the lesson learned when she was forced to sit and watch.
Bella Celentano.,
