After starring on high school boys' team, Penn State women's soccer commit Payton Galuski travels hours to chase her dreams

Soccer star Payton Galuski work out at Afrim's Sports Park last month in Colonie. (Jim Franco/Times Union) Long before the state championships and college offers, Payton Galuski would sit for hours with a ball at the Middletown Soccer Fields in Waterford, waiting for a pickup game to start."She used to just rot at the field," said Addyson Galuski, Payton's older sister by four years. "If my parents didn't tell her it was time to go home, she'd just stay there."That relentless devotion laid the foundation for a grueling routine years later. Now, at 16, soccer takes her roughly three hours from her Waterford home, several times a week.After winning two state titles with the Waterford-Halfmoon girls' soccer team, being named state player of the year, playing on the boys' team and becoming the first girl named to a boys' all-state team, Payton Galuski walked away from high school soccer. The Penn State commit wanted a harder test. So, she chose to sit out her junior season this fall to focus on her training with FC Stars of Massachusetts, an Elite Clubs National League team near Boston. She is preparing for the upcoming ECNL season, which opens in December, a college career and, she hopes, a future that includes a professional career and a place on the United States women's national team.She wakes up early, hits the gym at 5:30 a.m., heads to school by 7:50 and often doesn't return home until around 11:30 p.m. She eats and does her homework during the car rides to and from workouts with the FC Stars."It's a lot of training, a lot of practices, over in Massachusetts," Galuski said. "But I think it's worth it."Galuski comes from an athletic family. Among the family of athletes are her father, Kory Galuski, who won a state title with the Waterford-Halfmoon boys' soccer team in 1994 and his cousin, Mark Galuski, who coaches football at La Salle Institute. Another cousin, Courtney Galuski, played softball and basketball at Cohoes, where she once tied the national record with 15 3-pointers in a game against Schalmont in 2008. Kory and his wife, Stephanie Galuski, would take Payton, Addyson and their younger sister, Alexis, now 13, to the nearby soccer fields, often bringing the family dog. Kory set out cones and organized drills.Before long, Addyson noticed her younger sister wanted to keep working longer than she did."She would train more than me. She would train harder," said Addyson Galuski, who is now in her junior season at Hartwick. "She was not backing down no matter what."Payton Galuski joined the Albany Alleycats Soccer Club around the age of 9. There, she met Bethlehem graduate Claire Hutton, now a midfielder for Bay FC in the National Women's Soccer League and the U.S. women's national team. Galuski and the other younger players watched as Hutton demonstrated difficult skills and worked on her game.For about four years, Galuski trained under Hutton's mentor, Betsy Drambour, a former U.S. women's national team player. Drambour encouraged her to learn moves from YouTube videos and try them at practice.Skilled with the ball, Galuski was primarily a pass-first midfielder. Her dad recalled how she could have 50 yards of space in front of her and look for a teammate instead of dribbling upfield herself. Drambour wanted her to keep the ball, challenge defenders 1-on-1 and shoot more.One day, with no goalkeeper available at practice, Drambour handed Galuski a goalie jersey. She told Galuski to play in goal, but that whenever she got the ball, she had to dribble up the field and try to score. She could not pass."I don't care if they score 100 goals on you," Drambour recalled telling her. "Every time you get the ball, you're not passing."The drill continued for two or three sessions. By the final one, Payton was keeping the ball and taking on defenders. When Drambour allowed her to pass again, she had found another way to attack."That was when you really saw a huge difference in Payton," Kory Galuski said.Payton Galuski also wanted to bring those skills to Waterford-Halfmoon, where her older sister was already playing varsity. In 2021, she'd watched from the sidelines as a sixth-grade ball girl while her sister and the Fordians finished as Section 2 Class C runners-up. After the game, she told her father the next season would end differently."I will be playing varsity next year, and we're going to win a state championship," Payton Galuski told him.The following fall, she and Addyson won a state championship together, each scoring three goals in the final. Later, Payton Galuski became the first seventh grader named New York State Class C Player of the Year.In 2023, they won another title and Galuski finished with 41 goals and 19 assists, and earned Class C first-team all-state honors.After the second state title, though, Galuski began considering her next challenge. Her father presented the options: return to the girls' team and pursue the school scoring record or test herself against boys."I want to go play with the boys," dad Kory recalled her saying. "I want to be challenged."Hutton had already shown her that route was possible, moving from Bethlehem's girls' team to its boys' team before beginning her professional career. Throughout Payton Galuski's career, Hutton has remained a guide. She and Payton text frequently, Galuski's father said."She's been through what I'm going through," Galuski said.Still, before starting with the boys' team, Galuski worried about how her new teammates would receive her."I was just scared to go practice with the boys," Galuski said. "I didn't think they would like me."Waterford-Halfmoon boys' soccer coach Ryan Hardy watched her arrive for her first summer league practice."I'll never forget the first time she walked up … by herself … across the field," Hardy said. "You could tell she was terrified. But as soon as she got in [the scrimmage], I think she scored like five goals."As a freshman in 2024, she earned Wasaren League first-team honors and helped Waterford-Halfmoon reach the sectional final, where the Fordians lost 5-0 to Loudonville Christian.Hardy said the sectional-final loss was especially difficult for Galuski. The following season, when the teams met again in the quarterfinals, she scored a hat trick in the Fordians' 4-0 win."She wanted to beat those guys bad," said Hardy, whose team fell to Chatham in this year's playoffs. "She remembers all those little things. She's like, 'Hey, they did this to me last year. Now, it's time to get them back.' And that's what she did that game."Waterford-Halfmoon lost to Maple Hill in the next round, and Galuski finished with 19 goals and 18 assists, earned 2025 Wasaren League Offensive Player of the Year honors and made history by being named to the boys' soccer all-state team.She wrestled with whether to return for a third season with the boys' team, but ultimately decided it was time for a different test. The reigning ECNL New England Conference Player of the Year, Payton chose FC Stars' fall program to focus on areas she wants to improve - in particular, her open-field defending. The fall schedule emphasizes fewer games and more training, coach Graeme Blackman said, giving players more time to develop.Galuski's younger sister, Alexis, an eighth-grader who plays for FC Stars Blue, chose a similar path, opting for the ECNL fall schedule for her age group over playing for her school's modified or JV team.Galuski hopes the move will also serve her well at Penn State, where she plans to continue developing toward a professional career. She announced her commitment on July 8 after considering several schools, including North Carolina and Notre Dame."I had a gut feeling that Penn State was where I should be," Galuski said after she announced her commitment. "Whenever I talked to other schools to see if they would pique my interest, it always came back to Penn State."At Penn State, she also expects to join former Section 2 standout Kennedy Ring, a 2025 Columbia graduate who plays for the Nittany Lions. The two have trained together, but have never been teammates.For right now, Galuski's days typically begin early and end late. On nights she doesn't travel to Boston, she gets 1-on-1 sessions with Beestera Soccer, a local organization that offers supplemental personal soccer training, at Afrim's Sports Park in Colonie.Looking back, Galuski said she knows what she would tell the kid who sat at the soccer field all those years ago waiting for a game. It's the same message she has heard from Hutton, Drambour and Hardy."Keep pushing hard, putting that time outside of practice to keep growing," Galuski said, "and eventually it'll be all worth it in the end. Be the hardest worker in the room."Older sister Addyson Galuski remembers that devotion from their earliest years together on the Middletown Soccer Fields. "It's been in her blood," she said of Payton, "since she was born."SubscribeThere’s more to Albany with the Times Union. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at After starring on high school boys' team, Penn State women's soccer commit Payton Galuski travels hours to chase her dreams.