When the final whistle sounded, Hailey Greco could no longer hold it all in.
“There were a lot of emotions,” she said. “I’m not going to lie, I started crying.”
It was the second time this year that Greco experienced an emotional end to her soccer season. In the spring, playing her final season at Christ the King, the Jaguars made it to the OFSAA final, but were denied the school’s first Ontario high school championship by Windsor’s Holy Names.
It would not be long before she would get a second chance to make history. And this time it would end with tears of joy.
After graduation, Greco enrolled at Seneca College, joining the Sting, a team that had not lost a regular-season game since 2019. But Seneca was able to reverse its history of heartbreaking playoff losses by beating its rival Humber to capture its first Ontario collegiate title since 2014.
Then two weeks later in Charlottetown, PEI, Seneca capped the national tournament by edging Quebec’s Sainte-Foy 1-0 to become the first Ontario team to ever win the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association women’s soccer championship.
“Everyone was talking about us being dark horses,” Greco said, “but then to win it, the first for Seneca and the first Ontario team ever, it was so emotional.”
Greco joined a Seneca team that came into the season riding a 25-match winning streak in the regular season (it would reach 33 before a 3-2 loss to Centennial, the Sting’s only loss of the season). She knew expectations were high.
“Coming into Seneca as a freshman. I wasn’t expecting to get as much playing time. An atmosphere was created where you were going to have to fight for your playing time. If you were first year or fifth year, we all pushed as hard as we could to get on the field.”
Coach Luca Sirianni rotated his first-year players through the lineup. But Greco certainly made an impression with a pair of goals in her first collegiate game.
“She made the most of her opportunities,” he said. “She has good passing ability. She can cross with great pace and accuracy, and she wins those one-versus-one battles.”
Though Seneca’s previous three undefeated seasons had met disappointing ends, Greco never let that enter her thoughts.
“To me, it was a clean slate,” Greco said. “What happened in the past was the past. It was a new season, a new year to improve.”
So even when the Sting fell behind early in the Ontario final against Humber, the same team that had beaten them for gold the previous season, Greco had confidence in the team’s ability to bounce back. And they did, scoring twice before the half to take the lead on the way to a 3-1 win.
Then at nationals, the Sting didn’t yield a single goal. Against the country’s top-ranked team, Sainte-Lambert Seneca scored twice in the final five minutes to win 2-0 to advance to the championship game.
“She was an impactful player for us,” said teammate Rebekah Lee, MVP of the provincial championships. “She came in and was strong on the backline at nationals. She gives her all, and when she’s not on the field she’s one of our loudest supporters.”
With several departing veterans, Sirianni will be looking for players like Greco to take on bigger roles when Seneca defends its titles next season.
“I’m excited for her,” he said, “to see her continue to raise her game.”
