Gateway soccer programs making in-season strides

By: John Phillips
Sunday, October 5, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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The start of the 2025 soccer season in Monroeville was tough on a pair of young Gateway Gators teams.

The Gateway boys program is under the tutelage of Mike Rugh for a third season. A Gateway grad from 1996, he was inducted into the school’s soccer hall of fame in 2013 and had the boys program sitting at 2-5 in Section 1-4A play, 4-8 overall.

Despite having a roster with nine seniors, Rugh carries a large group of underclassmen who have been working to find their footing to begin the year.

To say it was a rough start to the season is an understatement, as the Gators began their schedule losing the first seven games by a combined score of 31-5.

“Going into the season, I knew we would be young. We’re starting just two seniors.” Rugh said. “We have two freshmen starting, and I knew we were going to take our lumps. We’re always starting freshman. We’ve never had the group of 10 seniors starting, so that is hard. I didn’t think we would start the season 0-7, given we were winning 2-1 with 30 minutes to play in the opener.”

Rugh and his team turned things around of late, ripping off four straight wins to get back into the section playoff race.

“The guys are starting to jell a little bit more,” he said. “Some things are starting to click and you can see it. We’re playing some of our best soccer right now and our goal is to get into the postseason.”

Seniors who have been part of the recent surge include captain Grant Karstetter, who has netted a pair of goals. Junior captain Camden Simon has six goals and seven assists.

“He’s a leader and does so by example,” said Rugh of Simon. “Just goes end line to end line each game.”

Rugh is part of a Gateway soccer coaching tree that feature two other head coaches in WPIAL boys soccer who graduated from the school: Ryan Hankey, who coaches at Penn-Trafford, and Mike Gullo, who runs the boys program at Mt. Lebanon. Both are 1995 graduates of Gateway.

As for the girls, Caleb Kyper is in his fourth season as head coach. The native of Huntingdon and Westminster graduate is working to grow a young program.

“We’re coming around,” Kyper said. “I thought it would take us about half a season to come around. We don’t have a big program, so the girls don’t play year-round, but I feel good about how things are at this point. I know the cards we must play right now.”

Part of the Kyper’s process to build Gateway’s soccer reach includes doing more with the community to grow interest in the sport.

“We try to integrate and bridge into our youth program,” he said. “I’m involved with the Monroeville youth soccer program. We try to have youth nights at our games, offer free training and have our girls work with them to get that wow factor with the younger players. We hope this gives us more interest in the kids coming up to play.”

The Gator girls are 2-5, sitting in fifth place of Section 1-3A, with an overall record of 4-7. One player Kyper has relied on is sophomore goalkeeper Ella Cepko.

“In my opinion, she’s the best in the section, and she reads the game so well,” Kyper said. “Her soccer IQ is off the charts. It’s mature beyond her years.”

Much like the boys program, the seniors class doesn’t dominate for the girls team.

“A lot of our seniors are role players,” Kyper said. “A team’s team. We don’t have any big standouts, but they go out and work for each other. I believe it builds our confidence and helps when going to play these bigger programs. That includes Julia Beam, who was our starting keeper, but moved to play offense when she sensed Ella was coming up.”

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