Former Pitt, Fox Chapel soccer standout to play in pro league in Israel

Former Fox Chapel High School soccer standout Dixon Veltri is taking her game overseas.

Veltri signed last week with Maccabi Emek Hefer of Israel and plans to join the professional team in December after she is done with postgraduate studies at Pitt, where she played for the last three seasons.

“I heard about the league while playing for the Pittsburgh Hotspurs this past summer,” Veltri said. “I played in the Women’s Premier Soccer League. It’s a college girls elite team. Every team was in contact with the Maccabi club and they offered me a contract.”

Emek Hefer is currently in first place in the Israeli league. Its regular season lasts until February and the league champion plays other teams from European countries.

Veltri graduated from Fox Chapel in 2017 and played as a freshman at UNC-Wilmington before transferring to Pitt. The Fox Chapel Borough resident graduated from Pitt with a degree in engineering sustainability in December of 2020 and is currently working on her Masters in that field.

Veltri has never been to Israel but is looking forward to the experience.

“A lot of my family members have visited there, and my mother’s side of the family is Jewish,” she said.

Veltri also plans to apply for Israeli citizenship and play on the national team, a move that would also simplify any passport issues.

The city of Emek Hefer is slightly north of Tel Aviv near the Mediterranean coast — kind of like Aspinwall to downtown Pittsburgh.

Veltri expects no language barriers; children in Israel are taught English as part of the school curriculum.

While at Pitt, the midfielder was a team captain the last two seasons.

“I loved playing at Pitt,” Veltri said. “Every year our program got better under coach Randy Waldrum. It was a great experience to play and travel to the different cities.”

Veltri is accustomed to being part of a soccer program with high standards. While at Fox Chapel, the Foxes made the playoffs all four seasons and she earned all-WPIAL honors twice and was all-section twice.

She had a spectacular senior season, scoring 16 goals with 21 assists for the Foxes to be named team MVP. During her career, Fox Chapel compiled a 66-16-3 record with Veltri scoring 38 goals and 39 assists.

“I loved playing at Fox Chapel,” Veltri said. “We had coach Eric Duffy and then Peter Torres (current coach) and we made the playoffs every year. We didn’t win a WPIAL title, but we had a strong team year after year, and my brother, Matt, plays on the boys team.”

Also during her time at Fox Chapel, she lettered four times in diving and in track and earned three letters on the Foxes gymnastics team.

Veltri, who has played soccer since age 5, also played for the prestigious Beadling Soccer Club, winning three state Cup titles, and competed at the U.S. Youth Soccer national championships and the Disney Showcase.