The Muhlenberg Weekly

Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Sports

Senior Maura Hendsey was ecstatic to come play soccer at Muhlenberg. She had always been geared to play at the collegiate level, but unfortunately her high school team in East Windsor, CT would never give her the competitive edge that she desired.

"My high school soccer team was horrible," she sighed. "My high school was tiny and my town doesn't have a travel soccer program, so as you can imagine we weren't very successful. My freshman year we were 0-16 and I think our best season was 6-10, which will probably go down in the East Windsor history books. Although it was very frustrating, it gave me a lot of practice as a defender."

"Needless to say I was very excited to come to Muhlenberg and play on a competitive soccer team."

Her expertise as a defender was well-earned, and in a most unusual way: most of what she knows is self-taught information. Coming from a losing program, Hendsey was constantly up against talented teams, whose attack she had to learn to break on her own. She relied on no one else but herself, and made it her duty to become a great defender.

It would later serve her well as a Mule. Since her freshman year, Hendsey has started in every single game and has undeniably contributed to a forceful and successful defensive unit.

She has been playing her current position since she was very young. "I play right back. It's my job to defend the opposing team's forwards and also to join in on the attack. I started playing defense when I was about 11 or so because I was one of the fastest on the team and could catch people, and have been playing there ever since," she said.

As early as her toddler years, Hendsey was constantly around soccer and proved to be naturally talented with a soccer ball when she was just three years old. "My father coached my brother's rec team when he was 5, and since I tagged along to all of the practices anyway, he was able to get me on the team," she recollected. "I was only 3 at the time, so I guess I've been playing soccer for quite a while."

Even as a youngster, she was just as fast and as quick as the boys she played with while she split her time between three activities: soccer, gymnastics, and track. Hendsey was a competitive gymnast for ten years, but ended up quitting in high school to pursue soccer and track.

"Soccer has always been my favorite sport," she said. "I love the feeling of accomplishing something with a team. I was a gymnast, and also ran indoor and outdoor track, which are primarily individual sports. I started out doing track just as a way to stay in shape for soccer, but ended up really enjoying it. I actually considered running track in college, but after playing soccer in the fall I decided it would be nice just to have some time off."

Continued...

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