Female Underclassmen Athlete of the Year, CCS Athlete of the Year, and Palo Alto Weekly Athlete of the Week. These are just a few of the many awards Jacey Pederson (‘16) has earned in her three years of high school.

Pederson comes from a talented sports family, as both her father and older brother have been drafted to the MLB, but she has made her own name on both the soccer field and the track.

Although she runs the 200 meter dash in track, Pederson is best known for her talents on the soccer field.  She has been an integral part of the Palo Alto varsity soccer team since her freshman year where she started as a forward. Pederson has been ranked 73 in the nation and 29 in California by MaxPreps, but has impressed the Paly community even more. In her time with the Lady Vikes, she has scored 36 goals and assisted 14. This past season alone she scored 26 goals for the Vikings.

Pederson’s efforts have payed off so far, as she verbally committed her sophomore year to play soccer for the University of California, Los Angeles.

Along with her dedication to Paly soccer, she has also been an active participant in the prestigious soccer club Peninsula-Silicon Valley Union Football Club (PSV Union FC) since elementary school. Pederson was also a member of the U19 National Team.  Despite her dedication to club soccer, she enjoys her chance to play for the Paly team as well.

“I play high school soccer because it’s a good platform to work on things I couldn’t necessarily work on in club,” Pederson said.

She also enjoys the opportunity to play with her peers. She feels that it is a more diverse environment, due to the age range from freshmen to seniors.

“I really like representing the school and getting to play with my peers, because with my club team I play with people from all over,” Pederson said. “Its nice to play with people from Paly and it’s nice playing with people from every age group, freshman to seniors”.

Even though she is an elite athlete, Pederson’s teammates credit her with being humble and helping push her them to be the best athletes that they can be.

“I think that with someone who is obviously the star of the team it’s really easy to be nice to players and push them to be better, or it’s really easy to be mean and make people feel worse than you,” Talia Malchin (‘17) said. “But [Pederson] is really good about being humble and helps the team push itself and she’s a good model of how it should work”.

Malchin also credits Pederson for her technical play and hard work.

“She’s really fast and she’s really technical, but she also just tries really hard and is serious about it,” Malchin said.

Pederson is overcoming a recent setback which she endured at a club soccer tournament. She underwent surgery to fix a fracture to her fifth metatarsal and will have to stay off of it till at least the end of the school year. She plans on using the summer to rehab her injury.

“I’m looking forward to dedicating my entire summer to getting back shape and training to get ready for a couple tournaments at the end of the summer that I am hoping to participate in,” Pederson said.

For now Pederson is just focusing on the future, and always trying to improve her skills.

“I am always trying to be better than I am right now, just like always trying to do my best,” Pederson said.