Gracie Falla: Leading from the Back

Fishing, hunting, and even catching an alligator is how Gracie Falla likes to spend time away from the soccer pitch. South Carolina’s junior defender and reigning SEC Defender of the Year is also good at stalking and hounding opposing attackers on the field, but those are skills she has picked up more recently.

“I was never really a big defender until I came in here my freshman year,” said Falla, a native of Mississippi whose family now lives in Louisiana. “I had always played more of an attacking role. Defense is what we’re known for here at South Carolina. Our staff worked with me and told me they wanted to fill that spot. It was sort of like starting from scratch. It’s a huge role. We take a lot of pride in that here.”

Regarding her off the field pursuits, Falla takes pride in that as well.

“I’m from the South,” Falla said. “Where I live now, you’re about an hour away from everything. We have a lake. We like to hunt. We like to fish. It’s always a good time. I go deer hunting. We duck hunt. We catch frogs. I caught an alligator over the summer. It’s a very Southern living. It’s a simple life around here, and I like it.”

Falla has had the opportunity to learn from some excellent defensive veterans in her first two seasons, and she adapted quickly, leading the Gamecocks in minutes played last season. While defenders don’t always have a lot of stats on their resume, Falla has no problem with that and looks forward to stepping up her role in 2024.

“I love competing,” Falla said. “It’s a really competitive role. I love getting the chance to shut down some good teams. We play against some of the world’s greatest attackers. I love getting to play against them, and I have teammates around me who are willing to do the same.”

While her role is now defense first, Falla can provide some offensive punch and has shown to use her size well in set pieces, tallying a pair of game-winning goals last season against Georgia and Texas A&M.

“I’m always itching to go forward because I’ve had that attacking mindset for so long,” Falla said. “I’ve learned to adapt.”

Falla was named to the SEC All-Freshman team as a rookie, playing alongside and learning from former First Team All-SEC defender Jyllissa Harris. She took the league’s top defensive honor last year, but she is still trying to get better.

“I just want to keep trying to be a better team player and get everyone around me to do the same thing,” Falla said. “We want to keep our standards as high as we can. Adding two more teams to the SEC is going to be even more of a challenge. I’m a junior now, so I have to be more of a leader. I have to try to be more informative and help others around me learn.”

The backline’s role could be more pivotal for success early in the season as the Gamecocks have several new options at goalkeeper with the graduation of multi-year starter and First Team All-SEC honoree Heather Hinz.

“I think we’ll be good back there,” Falla said. “We will be pretty stout. Any of them are going to be a good replacement for Heather, who is hard to replace.”
After posting a 12-3-6 overall record last year and going undefeated in SEC play at 5-0-5, while reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament and leading the SEC in fewest goals allowed (12), Falla and her teammates want more.

“We all have similar goals,” Falla said. “We kind of fell short last year and didn’t have a great postseason. We won SECs (Tournament) two years ago. We want to win championships and get further than we did last year. We’ve been working on finding that the missing piece.

“We’re going to be very hard to beat this year.”