It took Owen Filler no time to make an impact in college-level soccer.
The 2025 Belmont High School graduate and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute freshman joined the Red Hawks starting lineup for his collegiate debut in August, and has started in all 10 games he’s played in this fall. The defender posted an assist in his collegiate debut and has played the full 90 minutes in half of his appearances for RPI (3-5-5, 1-2-3 Liberty League). He missed four games due to an ankle sprain, but plans to return Saturday for a conference match vs. St. Lawrence University.
The former Belmont High School boys soccer team captain chatted with The Belmont Voice for a Q&A.
How did you get into soccer?
I started playing soccer at a really young age. I think I was three years old. I just fell in love with it. It’s become my biggest hobby. I watch it all the time. It was between that and hockey. I grew up playing both of those, but by the time I was in fifth or sixth grade I had to make my decision, which was to go to MLSNext, the club team. I played for the Boston Bolts. I had to decide whether to take my path to MLSNext and focus on soccer competitively or stick with hockey. I loved both sports equally, but I was definitely better at soccer. I played Bolts and MLSNext for three years, and in high school, I moved down to Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) and played high school soccer. Both my sisters played at Belmont as well. We would watch it together, watch Messi, the classics, the World Cup, stuff like that.
When did you realize you could play at the collegiate level?
On my club team I was playing on, the Bolts 2007 ECNL team, my coach, Sam Matteson, was an assistant coach for a few years at Holy Cross, an assistant coach at MIT, and is now the head coach at Clark University in Worcester. He basically taught our whole team about the recruiting process. He was like, all of the players on our ECNL team are good enough, but you have to put in a lot of extra work. Right then, I knew if I put in the work, went to the gym and got stronger, played by myself outside of practice to improve my skills, I knew I could make that move up to the next level. It’s a grind, I’m not going to lie. I started the process the spring of my sophomore year. It takes a lot. You’ve got to email a bunch of schools, reach out and make highlight reels of your film. You have to balance school, soccer, and recruiting. Junior year of high school was probably the busiest I’d been until now, because every day I would get home and watch films to make highlight reels to email schools. Not to mention, you have to attend development camps to get scouted. I went to a few in Maine and upstate New York.
What was your most memorable Belmont High School soccer experience?
I was actually just thinking about this the other day. There’re two that come to mind. In my junior year, we made a quarterfinal run, which I think was the furthest any Belmont team has made. I scored against Acton-Boxborough in the first round, and we won that game 3-2. They were the three seed and we were the 30th seed. At the time, it was one of the biggest upsets in MIAA soccer history. That was unbelievable.
Also, on senior night last year, we were tied with Reading and I think we needed the win to clinch playoffs or something. We might’ve been struggling a little bit. I scored one of my better goals, a good strike with my right foot, with under five minutes left. We ended up winning that game. On senior night, to score as a senior, was really special.
Why RPI?
Academically, I’m very math oriented. I’m very interested in data, data analysis, and using numbers to back up decision making. There aren’t many schools in the country better than RPI for that sort of thing…I had a great experience when I came on my official overnight visit. The coaches set that up, intentionally, to talk with people who might be in your same major. Most college coaches know this decision isn’t purely based on soccer. My coach always said that you need to pick a school, say if you got injured or stopped playing soccer, you still had to enjoy the school. For me, when I came here, I loved it. The guys on the team were great. The guys off the team who I met were super nice. I felt like socially I could definitely fit in here, it was what I was interested in academically and could play college soccer.
What are you studying at RPI?
I’m currently a business analytics major, so it’s data analysis pretty much with a focus on business. How can I use data analysis to improve business decision making?
Do you have specific career aspirations?
I’m in RPI finance club, and I’m also intending to join the consulting club. Financial consulting or data/business analyst at larger companies is what I’m going for right now. Obviously, that’s only a couple months in, so I’m sure that will change. I’m looking for internships in those fields, anywhere where I can use my learning and data analysis to help companies make good decisions.
How did you assert yourself as a freshman and get into the starting lineup?
Something I’m actually really proud of myself for over the summer, me and my friend Andrew Schreiner, he’s my best friend from home and we were co-captains of the high school team (and a freshman on the Dickinson University men’s soccer team). We worked out a lot together, played all the time, and ran a lot. That’s probably one place where I set myself apart. My freshman recruiting class is 17 kids originally, which is more than double the average recruiting size. I knew I was going to have to set myself apart if I wanted to play. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. every morning and hit the track. We had a fitness test where we had to run a five minute mile and I tried my absolute best to hit that target. I think I got second on the whole roster by the time we actually did it. I came into preseason in shape and having touched a ball many times since every day before preseason started. I was very in shape and technically ready. Also just kind of using my skills that I learned from captaining the high school team and my club team. I learned how to be a good leader on the field. Obviously you don’t want to come in and overdo it as a freshman, but I think I did a good job of getting to know a lot of the players on my team and being vocal still. I try not to change too much. There’s a reason I got recruited. I just try to keep it simple and play how I play. There’re going to be changes and things that the coaches want me to do differently. I just tried to really listen to what they were telling me to do.
How does the commitment to Division III college soccer compare to high school?
I will say it’s not too much different in terms of the amount of games played. I will say, our practices are no longer an hour and 15 minutes. They’re two hours with lifts right after. You’re committing to three to four hours per day every single day of the week. We have one off per week (Sunday). Both high school and college games are very direct, it’s a lot of winning headers and air balls. Height is a very important factor. I’m not used to being one of the shorter guys on the field at 5-11. Most of these guys are well over 6 feet, so I have to make up for that with my speed and physicality. The biggest difference is physically, after the games, my body is feeling it. Playing 90 minutes every few days here takes a toll on the body for sure. It’s definitely a commitment physically and time wise.