This basketball player can score in soccer, too

It's basketball for Kristin Kramer. It's scoring the goal.

Scoring goals just happens to be something she does well as well.

"Basketball is my main sport," the Marion junior said. "But soccer is up there, too."

Kramer had a huge game - soccer, that is - Monday night against Vinton-Shellsburg, collecting five goals and two assists in Marion's 10-0 romp. She has 23 goals in 12 games this season, which is a school record.

Good stuff from a girl who, again, hopes basketball will be in her college plans.

"It's pretty awesome to accomplish something like that," Kramer said. "But I give credit to my teammates. They give me passes. They work hard. It's about the team."

"She's played club soccer for a long time," said Marion Coach Becky Herman. "Overall, she's just got great athletic ability ... But speed is her thing. She's so fast. She can be five paces behind a defender and catch up to them. That's very frustrating for an opposing team."

Credit that speed to a track background. And perhaps it's hereditary, too, considering her brother, Derek Kramer, was a 100-meter state champion at Cedar Rapids Xavier who is on the Northern Iowa track team.

"I used to actually run track, too. I ran 100s," Kramer said. "I ran track and played soccer my freshman year, but it got to be too much. It was too hard. So I picked soccer."

Herman said her club, which is 8-4, has had difficulties scoring goals in past seasons, but having Kramer around has cured that problem.

"We've lost a lot of 1-0 games, overtime games," Herman said. "This year, it's a lot nicer having her there."

Kramer said it's a lot nicer being at Marion. She spent her first two years of high school at Cedar Rapids Xavier but decided to transfer.

Her cousin, Corey Kramer, is a senior at the school and a good all-around athlete.

"I guess you could say (the transfer) was to have a change with my athletics," she said. "I'm having fun. There are a lot of great people here, a lot of great coaches."

"It's fun to watch her play, I'll tell you that," Herman said.