Tietgens Making Her Mark On and Off the Field

By Ryan Holmes
Special to iBerkshires
11:20PM / Sunday, August 09, 2009

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Photos courtesy MCLA/Ian Grey After being a standout athlete at Drury High School, Jess Tietgens returned to the field for MCLA.

STAMFORD, Vt. — Jessica Tietgens got a lot out of growing up in Stamford. Now that's she's getting a little bit older, she's beginning to give back to the little town just over the Massachusetts border that she just couldn't bear to walk away from.

Tietgens, known by her friends and family simply as "Jess," has been a visible figure throughout Stamford and parts of Berkshire County in Massachusetts this summer. Local residents might have seen her running the Stamford Driving Range or working a number of different jobs at the nearby Stamford Valley Golf Course. That's not the only place you would have seen her, though.

While she's been working hard in Vermont, a picture of her can be seen on billboards all over Massachusetts and eastern New York. The ads were used to advertise Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where Tietgens has made quite a name for herself in the past two years.

The billboards features three MCLA students, with Tietgens standing in the middle holding a soccer ball. The caption reads, "MCLA: My College, Right from the Start."

It's a good catchphrase but not entirely true when it comes to Tietgens.

The 2006 Drury High School graduate actually spent her first year of college at Westfield (Mass.) State. She opted not to play soccer during the fall but got her feet wet playing with the Owls in spring practice. A talented striker with sprinters' speed, Tietgens would have been a welcome addition to the Westfield State roster. She never played a game for the Owls, however, choosing instead to come back home and enroll at MCLA in North Adams.

"I missed soccer, so that's why I started to play at the end of my freshman year," Tietgens said. "Westfield was boring to me, though, and I liked doing all the fun stuff I do at home. Things like horseback riding and snowmobiling. I missed all of the things you can do in Vermont."

Tietgens admitted she's a bit of a tomboy and being back at home in Stamford allows her the chance to do the things she wants to do.

"I like to do fun, adventurous activities," she said. "I'm not really into shopping or other girl stuff."

Whatever her reasons for coming home, you won't find any complaints coming from MCLA. Tietgens made an instant impact on both the women's soccer and basketball teams in her first year at the school. During the fall, she led the team in goals (15) and points (35), earning an All-MASCAC First Team and Rookie of the Year honors in the process. It was the first time in the program's history that a player was named Rookie of the Year.

"I'd say I began to feel comfortable at the college level when we got into the season and we had our first few games," Tietgens said. "I went back to the same position at high school. By the end of preseason, I started feeling comfortable with the competition in the league. When the regular season started, everything started falling back into sync."

Top Five in Nation
After a successful basketball season in which she was second on the team in points per game (7.9), Tietgens came back strong in her second year on the pitch. She increased her goals scored to 25 and her points to 59, setting new MCLA single-season records in the process. Her 1.39 goals per game average was the fifth highest total in the nation among NCAA Division 3 athletes, trailing just her 3.28 points per game average, which was good enough for fourth place in the country.

Tammy Daniels  Tietgens has been working at the Stamford Valley Golf Course when not running a driving range on Route 100.

"I think being more of a soccer player than just a runner," Tietgens said when asked about the improvement she displayed in her sophomore year. "I'm really fast, and all we did my freshman year was kick it over everyone's head, and I'd outrun everyone and score a goal. But last year, I started to play more soccer. I started dropping back more, playing the ball more and handling the ball more."

Not only did Tietgens' stats improve, but her team's record did also. Coach Deb Raber's club jumped from a respectable 9-7-3 mark in 2007 to 12-6 in 2008. Tietgens sounded confident that the same upward trend would continue in her third year with the club.

"We started playing more as a team last year," she said. "We stopped relying on that one person, either up front or in the back, and we started playing as a whole. That really helped us improve our overall record."

There will be challenges along the way, however, especially considering Tietgens won't be able to sneak up on anyone anymore. For every MASCAC honor she receives and every billboard that flashes her smile, there is a coach out there scheming to shut her down.

"Teams adjusted to me toward the end of the season," she said. "All of a sudden I was seeing s sweeper, a deep sweeper and a man mark. There's no way I'm getting past three people with just speed. This year we're going to focus on our team as a whole, more then just relying on my speed. That way teams won’t be able to put a deep sweeper back on us."

To do that, Tietgens said she might have to play from several different positions on the field and attack from the middle instead of always being up top. No matter where she plays, it seems like she's in a good position to leave a lasting legacy at MCLA. She's just one goal shy of breaking the career scoring record at the school and still has two full seasons to do it. Because she transferred, Tietgens will be entering the fall as a second-semester junior.

While she waits for her soccer stardom to come to fruition, Tietgens has been hard at work serving the Stamford golfing community this summer. When she's not working in the pro shop, bartending or waiting tables at the golf course, she's usually tending to the driving range that has been in her family for some years.

Tietgens and her boyfriend, Jason Langenback, decided to open the range this May after it sat closed for the past two seasons. The two split the range's duties right down the middle. They both pick up balls, while Tietgens fills the baskets and Langenback does the mowing. They plan on keeping it open through the fall until the first snowfall arrives.

As far as running a business goes, it's pretty cut and dry at the Stamford Driving Range. The operating hours are from dawn until dusk and there are three different sizes of buckets: $3 for a small, $5 for a medium and $7 for a large.

If there is someone there to wait on you, that's great. If there's not, just slide your money through the slot.

"Most of the time it's on the honor system unless there is someone there," Tietgens said. "You can't get it back once you put it in. I think it's unique to a place like Stamford. I don't lock my car, and I just don't expect people to take things from me."

Asked how business was doing, Tietgens said, "It's going good. If people keep being honest, we should be able to keep it open for awhile."

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