FAIRFIELD — Tuesday’s ceremony to honor a handful of Solano Community College women’s soccer student athletes was a good representation of the possibilities one has with being a student athlete at the school.
Juliet Ramirez and Annalissa Pena each signed a letter of intent to play at the next level with the University of Jamestown and Dominican University, respectively, while three others in attendance were honored for continuing their academic careers as well.
Anna Castro, Heather Walsh and Lauryn Williams were each part of the ceremony and celebration being recognized – as was Aly Bowers, who wasn’t in attendance because of work – by their coach, Jeff Cardinal, in front of family, friends and a few Solano staff members. Castro is headed to the University of California at Berkeley, while Walsh is going to Chico State and Williams to UC Santa Barbara. Bowers is bound for Sacramento State.
Each of them also had an idea of what they plan on studying at their next place of higher learning.
Castro is looking into political science, while Walsh wants to become a special needs teacher with a degree in liberal studies. Williams plans to get a degree in Spanish, but eventually work on a Masters in occupational therapy, while Bowers will be into early childhood development.
Ramirez is traveling the furthest, out to North Dakota to study kinesiology, with teammate Pena going into nursing.
Not only did each of the Falcons do plenty of work on the field, but they did it in the classroom as well with a combined GPA of 3.33 for the SCC women’s soccer team.
“It’s a lot of dedication and commitment,” Ramirez said of balancing both academics and athletics. “It’s pretty hard, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”
Ramirez attributed the success to being around teammates with the same goals in academics, citing working together often. Pena added that having some of the same pre-requisite classes helped with working together.
“It’s been a great experience,” Pena said. “I definitely enjoyed being at Solano. It means a lot that my teammates are transferring on. We worked so hard in the classroom as well as on the field and it’s nice to see we’re all finally going our separate routes and branching off.”
As for the play on the field, both Ramirez and Pena were midfielders and/or forwards and were seen in person by their respective coaches.
For Ramirez, she was asked to attend the Sophomore Showcase in Southern California, where junior college sophomores get a chance to compete in front of scouts. It was there the coaches at Jamestown saw her and later sent an email telling her they were interested.
“They liked how I would take on players all the time,” Ramirez said. “I had good skill and the ability to play at the next level.”
For Pena, she said Cardinal helped get her in contact with the coaches at Dominican and they invited her to participate in a practice in April.
“They thought I was a pretty dynamic player and liked what I was doing on the ball,” Pena said. “They also liked that I was able to just jump right in.”
If there was any moral to the story of being teammates, it’s that doing anything together is better than doing it alone.
“We talk a lot amongst ourselves on how to balance our classes,” Pena said. “Since a lot of us have the same classes, we’re look to each other for information and help to better ourselves in the classroom.”
By Marcus Lomtong from Daily Republic
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