By Owen Gotimer
LoCoSports Editor-in-Chief
[twitter-follow screen_name=’LoCoSports’]
Ashburn (October 9, 2015) — Broad Run High School senior Emily Roche has made a commitment to continue her soccer career at Washington and Lee University beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year.
“It feels relieving and, of course, exciting to know the school I want to attend wants to seal the deal as well,” the 5-foot-6 Roche said. “To know I can play at a school with a coaching staff I love and spend the same amount of time working towards my major is a great feeling.”
During her sophomore year, Roche attended a spring identification clinic at the University of Virginia where she was first introduced to W&L.
“The coach reached out to me after the camp, telling me he had interest, but I didn’t give it much look, as would any girl with her eyes set on a Division I college,” Roche reminisced. “However, after finally looking into the school a bit, I fell in love. It’s in the middle of the mountains in the small town of Lexington and is absolutely beautiful. The school itself is very prestigious, as well.”
Located about three hours southwest of Ashburn, Roche will make the journey to join the Division III Generals next fall.
This fall – under longtime head coach Neil Cunningham – W&L is off to a 8-2 start including a 4-1 mark in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
“The coach told me he is short on defenders, so it’s good to know I’ll come into the program with a good chance to play,” Roche said. “It would also be a dream of mine to help the Generals defeat their rival, Lynchburg, who won the NCAA title last year. It seems to me that that is the only team they have problems with, so I’d love to help secure that win.”
The New York City-native did help the Broad Run Spartans secure a win in the last game of their 2015 season.
On June 13 – after showing up late due to a morning ACT – Roche aided the Spartan backline in shutting out crosstown rival Stone Bridge in route to a, 3-0, win in the VHSL 5A state championship.
“I have high expectations this year after such a great season, and of course, it’d always be nice to get back to the state championship my last year at Broad Run,” said Roche who plays travel soccer for McLean 97G ECNL.
After starting soccer at a young age, Roche continually got more serious about the sport and has since found two figures to look up to to drive her during her play.
“As I got older, it got a lot more serious, and I realized I didn’t want to stop playing after high school. I lost my grandmother to ALS my sophomore year, so that gave me a new hope to play for, now that she can finally watch a game,” Roche said. “My high school team and I won the state championship this past spring, as well, and I along with my teammates had Madison Small to play for. There was no way we, as a team, were going to let her down.”
