While many kids dream of becoming firefighters, astronauts, and doctors, some student athletes grew up dreaming about playing the sport they love at a college level.

            Having determination, perseverance, and dedication made 18 senior athletes able to achieve their dreams of playing sports in college.

            Vanesa Abad, senior soccer player, is attending Ohio State University in the fall of 2013. After playing soccer for 15 years, she looks forward to getting better in college and for the new level of competitiveness.

            “I would have to say I’m [looking forward to] the training, competitiveness, and making close friends with my new teammates [the most],” Abad said. “[I stood out because] I try to make a habit of being the hardest worker on and off the field at all times.”

            Like Abad, Layne Self, senior volleyball player, started playing at a young age. Self received a full ride to the University of Rhode Island and will start her college career there this fall.

            “I’m just excited to keep playing. I’ve been playing since fifth grade, so I can’t imagine just not playing volleyball anymore,” Self said. “It’ll be cool to go early and make friends on the team and to just be a part of a [team] in college.”

            Even though Self has been playing volleyball since fifth grade, getting a full ride from the University of Rhode Island was not easy for her. When she is not playing volleyball during the offseason, she is always working out and strengthening her body.

            “My college coach said when he was recruiting me how I was always smiling and had a positive attitude. Even when I mess up, I easily shake things off,” Self said. “I started playing club [volleyball] in eighth grade and I decided sophomore year that I wanted to play in college, so I would work out in the off season whenever I didn’t have practice to get my jumping higher.”

Grant Soucy, senior lacrosse player, is also looking forward to playing on a team in college, and will begin playing lacrosse at Hobart and William Smith College in New York this fall.

            “[I’m looking forward to] the improvement of the game and how it’s a whole step higher than really anything I’ve been exposed to before,” Soucy said. “I’ve always wanted to [play in college]; it’s been my dream, and now I’m finally getting my chance to play with really good people and be a part of a team and continue to play sports.”

            Although each of the three players is looking forward to playing sports in college, they all agree on the one thing they fear to be the most challenging: balancing a college sport with college courses.

            “Balancing school and volleyball [will be challenging] because the school work is going to be a lot harder and then we play at other schools and travel,” Self said.  “I think whenever I have downtime, like in between classes during the day, I definitely have to study a lot because I know I’m going to have practice in the afternoon, I can’t be lazy and watch TV. When we’re on road trips I’ll have to do my homework on the bus and in the hotel. I just really have to make sure I stay focused.”

            While staying focused and on task will keep these players in college, they had to work extremely hard to get into the school in the first place. Soucy dedicated an entire summer to playing lacrosse in order to impress college coaches.

            “I think football helped me a lot with my athleticism and everything I learned in football definitely carried over into lacrosse. Really just raw athletics and my lacrosse knowledge helped me set myself apart [from other players]. They always say how important footwork is, and I think I have pretty good foot skills from football,” Soucy said.  “I’ve been playing on a club team every summer since 8th grade and we travel to about three or four East Coast tournaments every summer, so I spent all my summer traveling and trying to go to these showcases to get exposed for all these college coaches and really just trying to play as best as I could in front of all the coaches.”

            After reaching his goal of getting a lacrosse scholarship, Soucy set many more goals for himself in hopes to possibly play nationally after college.

            “I hope to become a starter within the first two years and to be able to play in the NCAA [lacrosse] tournament with my team,” Soucy said. “I would love to play for a national team, they always have world lacrosse games every year, but I wouldn’t play professionally because it’s not very developed yet.”