Mercury All-Area: Sabrina Marks was the perfect leader for Owen J. Roberts’ unlikely PAC championship team

Owen J. Roberts’ girls’ soccer season in 2022 was largely about living up to expectations. Those hopes were largely met by a team, led by an accomplished Class of 2023 group, that reached the PIAA Class 4A semifinals.

Yet the aftermath left a very different team and many question marks. Any road to success for this year’s Wildcats would require defying perception.

So it makes perfect sense why Owen J. Roberts would hitch its hopes to a 5-foot-2 center back who endured injuries the previous two seasons.

Few understand defying perceptions better than Sabrina Marks.

Marks has made a career out of challenging expectations. She’s a non-traditional central defender at her height, yet her toughness, aggressiveness and instincts overshadow it. Somehow, she’s a good bet to win every header – both offensive and defensive – in her zip code. That translated into a remarkable 15 goals and six assists – a massive total for a defender.

Marks made an impact at both ends of the field in a way only matched by the identity imprint she placed on a rebuilding Owen J. Roberts team that began the season 1-4 only to go on and win the Pioneer Athletic Conference championship – an accomplishment last year’s revered team couldn’t claim.

Marks’ influence wasn’t missed in postseason awards as the senior was selected a United Soccer Coaches’ regional All-American – one of only 11 Pa. players selected – to the Pa. Soccer Coaches Association All-State team, and now Mercury All-Area Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year.

“It was a good way to end the season just knowing that I brought my team to a PAC championship,” Marks said. “Even though we didn’t make it past the first round in districts, it was still a really successful season for what we were viewed as in the beginning of the season coming in.”

Not bad for someone who only started playing organized soccer in sixth grade.

As the youngest of Torrey and Kristen Marks’ four children, Sabrina gained a different brand of exposure to soccer by playing with older siblings Sophie, Pierce and Trey. Pierce, a 2021 OJR graduate, was second team All-Area as a senior and has continued his soccer career at Delaware Valley University.

“We always just went to the fields together and messed around,” Sabrina said. “(Pierce) always invited me to open play with all his friends. So I just played with them. I think that toughened me up a little playing with a bunch of older guys.”

She says the development of her play significantly elevated upon joining Reading-based FC Revolution on an ‘06 Revolution Reds team that is back-to-back US Youth Soccer NCS State Cup champions and in 2022 was USYS Eastern Regional winners and National Championship finalists.

“(Joining FC Revolution) changed my whole soccer perspective, my IQ and everything else, my technical work, passing, seeing the field,” Marks said. “That’s when I actually switched to center back.”

She’s defied expectations while often being the shortest player on the field in a position typically the opposite.

“It’s always motivated me being smaller. When people ask me where I play, I’m like, ‘Oh, center back.’ They’re like, ‘Really?’ Because not a lot of center backs are very small. So it’s a bit of a surprise,” Marks said.

“When I was getting recruited, a lot of college coaches said, ‘You don’t really play your size.’”

She’s grateful for the compliment and grateful too to have a future in Division I soccer at Liberty University, where she signed in November.

A 15-goal season from Marks displays her bravery and reading of the game to be able to capitalize on so many set piece opportunities, most frequently corner kick deliveries from fellow senior Emerson Storti. “Her service is phenomenal. It gets just to the right spot every time,” Marks said.

Storti may not have always been able to see Marks, but she knew where her classmate liked the ball.

“I always put two hands up when someone’s taking the corner kick just so they can see me. I can’t even see the ball half the time. I have to look around people. So I’ll start farther back,” Marks said.

Her Owen J. Roberts career was hindered by injury before this fall. As a sophomore, a torn MCL kept her out seven weeks, rejoining the squad during the PIAA playoffs. Last year, as a junior, a stress fracture in her foot cost her the bulk of the regular season. Upon her return, Marks’ importance was evident in the postseason during the Wildcats’ run to the PIAA Final Four while being deployed as a midfielder, which earned her second team All-Area selection.

This fall was the first time she played in her preferred position, center back, for Owen J. Roberts.

It was nearly short-lived thanks to another MCL injury – this time her left knee – suffered against eventual state champion Pennridge the second game of the season.

“In the beginning of the season, I sprained my MCL again, which happened to me my sophomore year,” she said. “This year it was a Grade 1 so I could play on it if I wore a brace.

“So I played on it.”

Marks is authentic and noted she was a tough leader in the preseason, but her never-quit mentality gained traction with a young Wildcats group that started four freshmen and the results improved as the season hit the home stretch.

OJR was 7-6 through 13 games but as October hit it rattled off a seven-game winning streak that culminated with a 2-1 win over reigning PAC champion Upper Perkiomen in the conference semifinals, followed by a 2-1 takedown of Spring-Ford on penalty kicks on Oct. 19. Marks assisted on Fiona Sanders’ opening goal then was one of three Wildcats to convert their PK.

As Marks let out a celebratory roar while holding the PAC championship plaque, the Wildcats had officially defied the perception of what their season could be – even the ones Marks entered with.

“I’m going to be honest, I didn’t even believe we were going to win that many games or a PAC championship before our season started. ‘The ‘23 class is gone, this year could be so bad.’ But I think losing a lot of games in the beginning of the season helped us. I think all of our losses helped us come up to the PAC championship.”

The season lasted just one game more – a first-round District 1 tournament loss to Harriton – as the injury list and fatigue took their toll on the Wildcats’ roster.

“We were beat like every minute,” she said. “And I was just like, “You guys just got to keep playing.’ Your mind gives up before your body. You’ve got to play with your heart, got to power through.”

Marks would know.