Why did you decide to graduate a semester early?

“My coach now brought up the idea of graduating early my junior year. I decided to do it because I thought it would benefit my soccer and we have a big class of 2019, so graduating early is going to give me the potential to be on the field this coming fall and I want to start playing my freshman year. When we played our first game, I realized it was way faster paced than what I’m used to, so it was a sort of shell-shock, but I’m glad I got that feeling now rather than when I play in the fall season.”

What have you been doing with the team since you graduated?

“Since I got here, I’ve been treated like I’m a normal player. We have practice basically every day; we only get one break day a week. We still do a lot of fun stuff with the team, like celebrating everybody’s birthdays and team dinners. We go boxing every Wednesday instead of practice, which is always interesting. The team was just super awesome. They were very welcoming to me and my roommate. It’s been pretty great and close, which made it very easy coming here.”

What has playing for a Division I team been like?

“Division I has been crazy. When we first got here, we were thrown straight into fitness testing and it was such a shell-shock, but it’s also a great environment. Everyone here wants to be here. They want Iowa to succeed. We talk about our team goals all the time, what we want to be and what we want to do. Everyone’s extremely motivated and we all have the same goal, which is really great because it just makes every training session very intense. Some days it’s harder than others to get up because we’re sore, but you know your team wants you there. It’s like a dream come true, but it hasn’t really hit me yet that I’m actually playing for the University of Iowa. Sometimes I joke that I’m still not in college, but rather a very long overnight camp.”

How has playing Division 1 been different than playing for either FHN or your club team?

“It’s definitely been different. One really big thing is that we’re all working towards the same goal. A lot of the goals for club was getting recruited for college, or for high school was becoming district champions or beating FHC. Now, it’s all combined on a new scale.”