Coach Matt Parrish, Abdul Eliwa, Coach Landon Goodman.
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
SALISBURY – Mars Hill’s men’s soccer program battled opponents last fall but fought to four scoreless ties and was shut out frequently in a 4-6-7 season.
Help is on the way. Abdul Eliwa, the Salisbury striker who was the 2025 Rowan County and South Piedmont Conference Player of the Year, signed recently with the Lions, who compete with programs such as Catawba, Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne in the South Atlantic Conference.
Eliwa is a triple-threat scorer. Right foot, left foot or head. He has wheels and skills and may get a chance to play early for the Lions.
“The one thing that always has been constant for Abdul is he has the ability to put the ball in the back of the net,” SHS head coach Matt Parrish said. “He’s a natural scorer, a lethal scorer. Even when he was a freshman, he scored 23 goals for us. Twenty-three goals is a fantastic season. I don’t know how many Rowan County players have crossed the 20-goal threshold as freshmen, but I’m betting that it is a short list.”
Eliwa has always been ahead of the curve. He was kicking soccer balls with purpose before he was 4 years old.
The Eliwas came to Salisbury from Egypt. Mohamed Eliwa, Abdul’s father, played professionally in Egypt and is an experienced coach. He had his son playing competitive club soccer early in life.
With the benefit of that head start, Eliwa’s huge freshman high school season for the Hornets wasn’t a total shock.
Even after every opponent learned to focus its defense on him, he scored 20 goals as a sophomore when the Hornets were still competing in the 1A/2A Central Carolina Conference. He was CCC Offensive Player of the Year and could’ve scored a lot more, but Parrish has a strict no-unnecessary-goals policy. Eliwa wasn’t going to get a chance to punch in the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth goals against an overmatched opponent.
It was a blow to the Hornets when Eliwa did not play for the high school team as a junior, choosing instead to compete for a soccer academy. Salisbury was still really solid that season, even without him.
“There’s always going to be some regret that we didn’t have Abdul his junior year because we made it to the fourth round without a true striker,” Parrish said.
When Eliwa returned to the Hornets for his senior year, he had grown in a lot of ways. Mentally, emotionally and physically.
“From the first workout, from the first practice and right up until our last game, that was a fun team to be a part of,” Eliwa said. “I was looked to for leadership for the first time, as well as goal-scoring, and that was a great feeling.”
He returned to the Hornets with an expanded skill set.
“His game had improved, as he had became less reliant upon his speed, had developed a left foot, and had become very dangerous in the air,” Parrish said. “My absolute favorite thing about him was his growth and maturity, not only as a player, but as a teammate and as a human being. Almost everything for him has adapted in some capacity, and he has found the ability to have team success as well as individual success. He has made strides in his attitude, the way he conducts himself on the field and the training ground, and his leadership skills.”
Eliwa had a tremendous senior season for coaches Parrish and Landon Goodman, not only repeatedly pounding the back of the net, but leading a team that made a major move up to the 4A/5A South Piedmont Conference. The Hornets went from being one of the large schools in their league to being one of the small ones. Salisbury still had a terrific season, went 17-1-5, stayed unbeaten until the playoffs and won the league championship with a 12-0-2 record.
Eliwa tallied 35 goals (eight were game-winners) and nine assists as a senior for a career total of 78 goals. He scored 23 goals in the 14 SPC games. He scored huge goals against the league’s best sides – Concord and Robinson.
“The competition in the SPC was good,” Eliwa said. “Every goal mattered in the league games.”
Eliwa’s stellar season included being named an All-State player by the North Carolina Coaches Association.
The last three goals of his high school career came in the playoffs. He suffered a hip injury in the second round of the 4A playoffs – he was fouled 11 times in that one. Eliwa being limited by the injury contributed to the Hornets losing in overtime in the third round.
A Mars Hill coach came to see Eliwa play during his senior season.
“They picked a good night to watch me,” Eliwa said. “I scored two goals and had an assist.”
There was lots of correspondence after that, mostly by Email. Then there was an official visit by Eliwa to the school located 18 miles from Asheville.
“I think the mountains will take some getting used to, but that part of it is going to be exciting for me,” Eliwa said. “I really liked the campus, the school, the coaches and the team.”
Since soccer season, Eliwa has celebrated his 18th birthday. He has stayed busy with classes and baseball.
The Hornets don’t often enjoy the level of success in baseball that they do in soccer, but he’s enjoyed being part of the team and playing for coach Carson Herndon.
“Baseball has been fun, never boring,” Eliwa said. “It’s a weird game to me because there is no contact. I’ve gotten used to a lot of contact in soccer.”
Eliwa is one of Salisbury’s top students. He takes honors courses. The science classes are his favorite. Playing soccer for so many years has given him a fascination for human physiology, for how the body moves and for how it heals.
Mars Hill offers a biomedical sciences major, and Eliwa’s focus is on a future in the medical field. He’s not sure of his exact reporting date to Mars Hill yet, but he knows it will be before the first of August.
“The stats and the accolades for him and the positive results for his team were constant as he gained maturity,” Parrish said. “I regret that he got hurt in the playoffs last season because I don’t think our season would have ended when it did had he been healthy. He is a player that Mars Hill is very fortunate to bring in. They have a young squad and they can always use goal scoring.”
