By Pete Mollica

Nick Liste is the Valley’s top punter and one of the best kickers.

NILES — Since he was 5 years old Nick Liste has been kicking a ball around, mostly a soccer ball but he’s getting a lot more notoriety since he started kicking a football.

Liste, a senior on the Niles McKinley High football and soccer teams, is winding down an outstanding career with the Red Dragons and he’s hoping that his best kicks are still ahead of him.

“I just love kicking the ball, first in soccer and now both in soccer and football,” said Liste,

This season, both the Niles football and soccer teams are struggling somewhat, but Liste has still been a solid performer on both squads.

He leads the Red Dragons’ soccer team in goals with 12, down somewhat from his junior season when he scored 19. Last year he was named first team all-district, first-team all-county and second team All-MAC in soccer and has already been informed that he’s been selected first team District and County again this season.

But as good a soccer player as Liste is, he still knows that his future, especially for college, lies in his football abilities.

“My goals is to be kicking for a Division I college football team next year,” said Liste.

“I started playing football in junior high and in eighth and ninth grade I played different positions,” he added. “Once I started kicking I knew this was what I wanted to do, so to avoid injuries I just concentrated on kicking since I’ve been in high school.”

It’s not easy for a high school coach to see a talent like Liste on the field and not to be able to take full advantage of his ability.

At 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, Liste is probably one of the fastest players on the Red Dragons team and coach Dan Yeager would love to have him in the game at all times.

A couple of times this season Yeager had Liste run off a fake punt and the senior ended up breaking a wrist earlier in the year, which ended that strategy.

“Nick is without a doubt our best weapon on the field,” said Yeager. “He can get it through the uprights from about just anywhere on that half of the field. We’d love to use him more, but we know that his future lies in kicking the football and we don’t want to do anything to get him hurt.”

Liste has made 4-of-5 field goals this season, his longest being 46 yards, while as a punter he’s been even better averaging over 43 yards a punt, which is the best mark in the Valley.

Just an example of Liste’s speed was evident this spring when he helped the Niles 4x100-meter relay to a seventh place finish at the state track meet in Columbus.

Liste lettered as a sophomore in the shot put and competed in both the shot and the relay last spring.

“I think my best throw in the shot was 44 feet early last spring,” Liste said.

But it was his friends, Alex and Robert Sava and Ricardo Beltran, who talked him into joining the relay which brought home a state medal.

Like any other high school athlete, Liste has his dreams. And they include being the kicker for the Ohio State football team.

“That’s still not out of the question,” said his father, Dave Liste. “They requested films on him from this season and we’re compiling them and we’ll be sending them out soon.”

Liste has been heavily recruited by the University of Pittsburgh and has had a personal tryout with Panthers’ assistant coach Matt Cavanaugh, a Youngstown native.

“That was really exciting,” said Liste.

“We kicked in their indoor facility and I was nervous at first, but once I settled down it was really a lot of fun.”

“When he first went into the session he had his tee and everything with him,” added his father. “But [Cavanaugh] told him to forget the tee and he was still kicking 50 yarders.”

When Cavanaugh asked Liste to do some punting so he could get a hang time, the youngster booted his first punt off the roof of the indoor facility.

“I think they were pretty impressed,” said his father.

Liste has been attending camps all over the country in recent years including Ohio State, YSU and the U.S. Army All-American Bowl camp, which was by invitation. He won all the kicking honors at the YSU camp this summer.

While Ohio State is still his dream choice, Liste said he’d have no problem kicking for Pittsburgh or another Division I school if that’s the way it turned out.

“I just want to be kicking in a Division I school next year,” he added.

And just how much does the senior love to kick the football?

“Well last winter with about 6 inches of snow on the ground, he made me drive him down to the practice field here so that he could kick,” said Dave Liste.

mollica@vindy.com