Arcadia senior Rob Kitchen signed his National Letter of Intent to play at the Virginia Military Institute at a ceremony on Monday afternoon. He will join Irondequoit senior Garrett Warren next year and join current Section Five alumni Doug Passero from Webster Thomas. The brief ceremony was held in the Arcadia High School gym, with Athletic Direct Sue Penepent welcoming the twenty or so family and friends in attendance who were also honoring baseball recruit Steven Klimek (St. Bonaventure).

"I had a feeling in my stomach. . .I wanted to play. They play some of the biggest schools in the nation, like Virginia." The offensive midfielder who started playing in seventh grade after seeing a flyer recruiting players, narrowed his list to VMI, Stevens and Limestone. "I started to play for Blaze in my freshman year and a year later, I received a letter from Loyola University. I realized then that if I kept it up I could go somewhere big. That just motivated me more to do everything I could to make myself better."

He quickly named his father as the person who has helped him to get to his current level of success. "He has helped in so many ways. He helped with stats, my video and dealing with emails. Without him ,I might not have been able to get through it all." On his school team Rob pointed to Kendrick Heintzelman (2010), who served as his mentor when Rob first started to play on the Varsity. He may not have been the best player on the team, but he worked the hardest."

Rob "loves to go to the goal" and it is one of the things he sites as a strength. In his three years with the Lightning, he has recorded 99 points (68g-31a). During his last year at Arcadia he plans on working on getting bigger in preparation for the riggers of life at VMI. First, however, he gets to play one more year in high school.

More images are available in the gallery.