Camas’ Palodichuk is national player of year

Nick Palodichuk has been on some big soccer stages. But until this week, he’d never been a cover boy.

A junior at Camas High School, Palodichuk is the Player of the Year on Parade Magazine’s 2010 All-America High School Boys Soccer Team. He will be featured on the cover of Sunday’s edition of the magazine, which is inserted into newspapers across the country, including The Columbian.

Palodichuk, 17, learned of his selection while attending a training camp in late April for the U.S. under-18 national team in Carson, Calif. He posed for photographs with Landon Donovan (a former Parade national player of the year) and girls soccer player of the year Morgan Brian, a junior at Frederica Academy in St. Simons Island, Ga.

“It was really cool,” Palodichuk said. “I knew I was pretty good, but to be the No. 1 guy was a big surprise.”

A Battle Ground native who started playing soccer at age 4, Palodichuck spent a year training in Florida with the U.S. under-17 national team, and played for the team at the under-17 World Cup in Nigeria, scoring America’s goal in its elimination loss to Italy.

He returned to play for the Papermakers this spring, scoring 26 goals and contributing 11 assists as the Papermakers finished third in the state for Class 3A.

He has made a verbal commitment to play college soccer for Duke, though he cannot sign a college letter of intent until his senior year in high school.