AMAZING GRACE: Princeton Day School girls’ soccer star goalie Grace Barbara cradles the trophy earned by her club team, the PDA Gunners, for winning the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) U16 national championship last month in Oceanside, Calif. Rising PDS junior Barbara, who recently committed to attend Princeton University and play for its women’s soccer program, helped the Gunners post an overall record of 41-0-4 in their title run.

Having emerged as one of the top goalkeepers in the area during her freshman season for the Princeton Day School girls’ soccer team in 2014, Grace Barbara faced a critical decision the following spring.

Taking up the game as a five-year-old through her local club, Yardley Makefield Soccer (YMS), Barbara had moved up the ranks in its program. But with the YMS team in her age group going through transition in 2015, Barbara was offered the opportunity to play for the Players Development Academy (PDA) Gunners.

Although the PDA program was based in Zarephath in Somerset County, nearly an hour and a half away from Yardley, Barbara decided to make the move.

“I just felt like that opportunity might be the best for where I was going in my soccer career college wise so I made the executive decision to go with PDA,” said Barbara. “It is a ride but it has been a change for the best.”

Switching to PDA put Barbara on the road to a national title as she helped its Gunners team win the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) U16 national championship last month in Oceanside, Calif.

The Gunners, who ended the 2015-16 campaign with a 41-0-4 record, featured a stingy defense.

“In our 45 games, we let in only seven goals; it was the best defensive record in the ECNL in the past few years, let alone our age group,” said Barbara.

“I have a great back line and our other keeper, Meg McClelland, is great. We work really, really well together. My joining the Gunners was great for them because Meg and I have similar styles of play.”

The years that Barbara spent at YMS helped her develop into a top goalie.

“Through the YMS program we had a couple of keeper trainers, one of whom is Brad Malone,” said Barbara, noting that she played at striker until she was converted to goalie as a 12-year-old when her team had nobody to play goal.

“He is really influential in my life, he helped me build the fundamentals of the position. They say the most improvement in skills happens early and that is what really helped me retain the position and work my way up to be one of the better keepers in my age group and in turn make the regional team and have the opportunity to play on PDA, one of the top clubs in the nation. He really helped me build my skills at a young age in order to help me take the next leaps as a teenager.”

In 2015, the Gunners came within an eyelash of making the ECNL Final 4, qualifying for the national playoffs and posting a record good enough in pool play to advance but ended up getting eliminated on tiebreakers.

“We had felt the emotion of being knocked out on goal differential, which is the worst way to get knocked out,” said Barbara.

“It went down to a couple of different tiebreakers. It turns out we had let up one more goal than the other team and they ended up moving on. We feel that we could have carried the team through.”

Coming into the 2015-16 campaign, Barbara and her teammates were primed to take the next step.

“We had a lot of new kids, new blood on the team,” added Barbara. “We felt even though it hadn’t worked out in Seattle for us, that in the next season if we would coordinate all of our skill sets together and it we were an attacking team and went at them, we would be more successful.

While the Gunners had high hopes, they were taken aback by their success as they reeled off win after win.

“In the middle of the season, our coach got us a cake when we reached 20 wins,” said Barbara.

“We were saying how long is this going to last. We knew we were a really good team but everyone is kind of shaking their heads, is this luck, what is this, what is happening.”

Qualifying again for the national playoff, the Gunners were determined to make things happen.

“We had three very tough teams that we were going to play against,” said Barbara, who helped the Gunners go 2-0-1 in Group C play as they topped the Dallas Texans 1-0 and beat the Vardar (Mich.) ECNL club 4-1 before tying Tophat Soccer Club (Ga.) 0-0.

“In the third game, we knew that all we needed was a tie to move on. They were coming at us with some intense pressure and we sat back and played defensively. We said let’s save our energy because if and when we do move on, the competitor that we are going to be playing, Solar Chelsea (Texas), is a very, very good team.”

Advancing out of group play, the Gunners defeated Solar Chelsea 2-1 and then topped the FC Stars of Massachusetts 1-0 in the national semifinals to earn a spot in the title game against Real Colorado.

“We went into the final saying we have gotten this far and we can’t have our one loss in the season be in the national final,” said Barbara.

“We worked so hard. We had gone to practices five days a week. We were playing when our parents had to turn their cars headlights on because the lights went out on the field. We have been busting our butts trying to get to this position and now we are here and we can’t just let it all go. Everyone pointed at everyone and said you need to work your hardest today and leave it all out there on the field and that is what we did for sure.”

In the final, the Gunners pulled out a dramatic win, scoring a goal late in overtime to prevail 1-0.

“The emotions were crazy, we scored in the last 25 seconds of double overtime to win it,” said Barbara.

“We all dropped to the ground, bawling our eyes out. It was totally crazy, an emotional roller coaster for sure. We were still bawling our eyes out at the awards ceremony.”

For Barbara, playing in the PDA program has helped make her a sharper goalie.

“The program is probably the highest level soccer I have ever played, not only the players in front of me but the teams that we are playing are just very high level teams,” said Barbara.

Having recently committed to attend Princeton University and play for its women’s soccer program, Barbara is primed for the challenges at the college level, on and off the field.

“I have been pushing myself academically and athletically all of my life, so why not continue that in my college career,” said Barbara.

“I would rather push myself in college and have very good opportunities career wise instead of having it take a back seat and focusing more on soccer in college.”

In the meantime, Barbara is focused on helping her PDS squad enjoy another big season as it has won two straight state Prep B titles coming into 2016.

“I am very excited for this upcoming season; it is going to be a good season,” said Barbara, noting that preseason practices start on August 22.

“We only lost Isabel (Meyercord), which is a big gap to fill but we are getting a lot of freshmen in. I am pretty excited to see what the team produces.”