Summer plans vary for each college student, but for several soccer players they had the same goal in mind. The only difference was where they were located.
While some athletes traveled home to practice with club teams, others made longer journeys to help prepare for the upcoming season.
Meredith Parrilla, a junior defensive center midfielder, studied abroad in Segovia, Spain for a month, while also improving her soccer skills. She said it was helpful to be alongside her teammate, junior Katie Ruiz.
“The fitness packet that our coach gave us was much more difficult to follow in Spain because there were no flat roads or tracks,” Parrilla said. “Being there with [Ruiz] was nice because we motivated each other to work hard.”
It wasn’t in Segovia where Parrilla saw her fitness turning point, however. When she returned to Raleigh at the end of June, she worked with her strength and conditioning coach in the morning before playing two to three hours of pick up with the men’s team in the afternoon.
Parrilla said because the speed of play is much faster in the men’s games, it helped her decision making.
“That’s my job as defensive center mid,” Parrilla said. “My job is to distribute the ball and make things happen.”
“They are also really physical so I became much stronger. They didn’t let down, they beat me up pretty good.”
The results were positive for Parrilla at the start of pre-season. She said she passed her fitness test with the best time since she has been at State.
“If the coaches weren’t going to play me this year I wanted it to be because I wasn’t good enough, not because I wasn’t fit,” she said.
While Parrilla focused on staying fit, her teammate, sophomore forward Nadia Aboulhosn wanted to make sure she was getting continuous touches on the ball.
She said she stayed in Raleigh to train with her old club team, U-20 Triangle FC. For Aboulhosn, training began right when school got out and consisted of three practices every week for 90 minutes and at least one game per week.
“Summer training helped a lot,” Aboulhosn said. “When we practiced we focused on doing stuff with the soccer ball the whole time.
“It kept me in shape, but more importantly it helped improve my touch on the ball.”
The hard work paid off for Aboulhosn as her summer team went on to win the U.S. Soccer League Super 20 North American Title.
For Alan Sanchez, junior midfielder on the men’s soccer team, being immersed into a different environment helped him in the off season.
Because he was born in Chile and had trained there previously, he knew what to expect when he set off for five weeks to play with a club team called Universidad Catolica.
Sanchez said he only trained to gain experience, not to play in actual games.
“It helped me because soccer has been around in Chile for 100 years, so the speed of the game is quicker. It’s better overall in Chile,” Sanchez said. “The only way they can get out of poverty or move up the social class is soccer; school is not an option for them.”
Although earning respect from the other players was difficult, Sanchez said he saw many improvements in his play.
“My speed of play is better, my technique and knowing how to move on the field,” he said. “I had really positive feedback from the coaches.”