By Mark Robinson

Kat Walton played soccer and basketball at Greenbrier East, graduating last year.

She is attending Concord College, where she tried out for the soccer team. Following are some comments she made in December about her decision to play. Soccer season was in the fall.

“I was going to an ID camp but it got snowed out, so my dad got in contact with the coach and I went down during their spring training, did two practices, and she ended up signing me.

“I went in August and reported. It was a different coach. The original coach called me in mid-June and said she had taken a D1 position and that we were going to have a new coach. We ended up getting Luke Duffy in mid-July. I could have changed my mind. I wasn’t even going to play initially, but Dad said, ‘If you look back ten years from now you’ll wish you had tried.’ I’m really glad I’m trying.

“It takes a lot of time, but it’s worth it.

I’ve made a lot of good friends on the team. I got  a few minutes in the Wesleyan game and then I got 22 minutes in the University of Charleston game. I played outside mid-field both times. Other players might shoot from there, but I didn’t. I did a lot of running back and forth. I thought I did okay for not having any time in games. It’s a whole different level going from high school soccer to D2 college soccer. You’re going to everybody’s best players off their high school teams. You have everybody’s best players.

“On our team we had 25 players. It can be discouraging looking at everyone’s skill level, because I’m levels behind everybody else, which is hard. You have to work twice as hard. I think I’m making progress. I haven’t noticed, but the coaches say they’ve noticed. We’ll see how the spring goes.”