University of Iowa

Transferring to a big university is such a big change! Everything is different. The classes are bigger and a lot harder, the campus is way bigger, there's a million people and it would be impossible to meet everyone, you hardly ever see people you know around campus and that's just the school part. With soccer the level of intensity and skills is way above high school and junior college. The conditioning is something you never thought possible. I've never had harder running workouts and I've never lifted so many weights in my life. It's almost guaranteed you'll gain 10 pounds in muscle once you begin training with a D1 soccer program. It has been so different and so challenging but worth every bit. When you finish a hard working out there's nothing better then that feeling! All the hard work brings so much success in the end! I might complain about the work outs before and during them but a really love the way my body feels after! I really wouldn't change anything!

Junior College

Sorry its been so long! I'm in finals week right now and life has just been really busy! But I wanted to share my experience with college soccer. Out of high school the only D1 university that was really interested in me was Weber State. I really didn't have any desire to stay in Utah unless it was playing for the U. Weber also wanted me to play wing and I had my heart set on forward. I had a boyfriend at the time who played for Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, IA. Being in high school and thinking I'd "found the one" made me want to go to school with him. I contacted his coach and a few months later I went to a try out in Logan and before I knew it I was on my way to Iowa. I honestly was the best choice I could have made. Soccer was such an amazing experience. I was able to really learn the game at I higher pace then high school but it still wasn't jumping into D1 status. I went in to Iowa Western and was able to break tons of records my freshman year and continued to break my own records my sophomore year. The experience I had there I wouldn't change for anything and I wouldn't have done it any different. I was lucky enough to be blessed with a group of girls who to this day and forever we will always be best friends! I've never found better friends in my life! Going to a junior college before a big university is something to look into. The positives are that you get more experience at a higher level, you get to be eased into taking college classes, its a smaller school, you know a lot more people just a really great experience if going to a big university doesn't sound appealing.The negatives are it can be a lot harder to get recruited by a D1 out of a junior college. I was very fortunate. When I transferred to another school I had to start all over. If you go to a University first you only have to start over once. If I had to chance to make my decision again I would have done the exact same thing. Everything happens for a reason and I know I was suppose to go to Iowa Western. and it was the greatest experience of my life!

High School

High school was always so much fun for me. My first two years were intense. For the first time I had a coach that really knew how to condition you and would yell at you for mistakes. It took a lot of getting used to but it only made me better and made me stronger. Something to keep in mind when you get new coaches is that they will never be the same as the last. Each coach does things different but they all has something to offer and learn from. I went through 3 coaches in high school and learned and grew from each one of them! I started out playing center mid in high school my freshman and sophomore year. My junior year I started playing wing but I always hated that position. But remember playing a position you hate is always better then sitting the bench. Still I always wanted to play forward and I wasn't going to stop pushing and working for that position. My senior year I finally got to play forward!I loved it and haven't stopped playing that position since. I thrive off scoring goals and would do just about anything to do so. Being able to score goals is what helped to get me to Iowa Western!

#14 at Iowa Western CC

Club Soccer

Playing soccer at the D1 level is something any little girl thinks about if she grows up playing soccer. I started playing at about age 5 and haven't stopped since. Living in Cache Valley was not the easiest place to find a quality soccer team to play for. I was never on much of a winning club team until my freshman year in high school. As I played on a less talented team we payed against a Denis Giles team and got demolished by them. After the game Denis came up to me and asked if I would like to join his team. That was the first time anyone had taken any interest in me and thought I was good enough to play with the best. Denis changed my life and transformed me into the player I always wanted to be. The off season between my freshman and sophomore year was the first time I got to work and train with his team. When I returned to my high school team the following fall my high school coach couldn't believe the difference. He said he had never seen anyone in all his years of coaching improve so much over one summer! And from then on playing for Denis only made me better. I'm not going to say I always loved going to practice and that I never complained because I'm not perfect. But you know you have to go anyway and in the long run your going to wish you never slacked at any practice and never wasted any time. You'll need all the extra work you can get! Enjoy it while is lasts. Some of my favorite soccer memories were with those girls on that team! And some of my best friends still today are from that club team! Don't ever waste a minute being unhappy at soccer!!!!!!!!!!