Nov. 4, 2004

It's amazing how fast your college years can go. After sitting down with this years women's soccer seniors, one gets the impression that all of these girls wish they could go back in time and start their USF soccer careers all over again.

Alexis Moren, MacKenzie Kerr, Alana Healy, Laura Ott and Stephanie Beall have all been active members of the women's soccer team for the last four or five years, while Annika Schmidt joined the Dons for the last two years of her collegiate career.

For the this years seniors, their favorite memories vary, but for defender Laura Ott there is one memory that always sticks out. Every year before the regular season begins, Head Coach Pamela Kalinoski takes the team on a three-day bonding session to Tahoe. During those three days, all the players and coaches have a chance to get better acquainted, to hang out and ultimately to get more comfortable with each other. As Laura puts it, "it's a necessary part of our preparation, and although we are not totally on vacation, there are plenty of opportunities to laugh and to genuinely understand your teammates and where they come from. It's always my favorite time of year."

While goalkeeper Stephanie Beall is quick to concur with Laura, Beall has a more retrospective look at her USF career, "I wish I could take a video camera and tape my year's at this school. So many special things has happened for me at USF, it would be amazing to relive those memories again."

Before Saturday's game against Gonzaga, the six seniors will be honored with a pre-game presentation that will recognize all their achievements and accomplishments at USF.

Saturday's game will take place at 1:00 pm at Negoesco Stadium. A win against the Bulldogs, coupled with a LMU loss or tie, would put USF in a fourth place tie in the WCC and put them in excellent position to obtain their first NCAA post-season birth in team history. The NCAA playoff selections will be announced on Monday at approximately 1:30 pacific standard time.