Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s first women’s soccer team will begin scrimmages against other universities this term. The official name for the now recognized team is Texas A&M-San Antonio Women’s Club Soccer.
Valeria Cazares, president of the team, and Brianna Garcia, vice president, fulfilled the required trainings and paperwork in September to launch the club.
Until now, the university didn’t have an official women’s soccer team but Cazares, bilingual education major, and Garcia, bilingual education EC-6 major, worked to comply with all the requirements to be recognized as a team.
“We have been attending trainings and have been trying to recruit girls as well as sponsors,” Cazares said.
“Even though we have had many girls interested in becoming part of this team, it has been hard recruiting dedicated players,” Garcia said.
Recruitment for players started by handing out flyers, showing up at involvement fairs and even at Jag X, where freshmen got to hear about all the different organizations on campus.
“During the new student orientation, I was walking around the tables to see what clubs they had and I saw they had soccer, so I went to go ask for more information,” said Sayra Meza Ascencio, first-year Spanish major, who is excited to be part of the first women’s soccer team.
Practices are held at Palo Alto College, every Monday and Wednesday from 6:30 – 7:45 p.m. Time may change when the field at A&M-San Antonio becomes available.
Garcia said the season will officially start when there are enough girls in the team.
“On JagSync we have roughly 25 girls signed up but not many show up to practice. But as of right now only seven players have been coming out and showing up to practice,” Garcia said. “We need at least four more girls to make this team possible.”
Receiving approval for first women’s soccer team makes Cazares and Garcia proud but they won’t stop there. They want to keep building players and team pride.
They may not be here to see all the accomplishments there is to achieve in the future for the team, but Cazares and Garcia say they are glad that they were part of the launch team.
As for players like Meza, they want to encourage more girls to join the team to make it one of the best and strongest teams in San Antonio.
Students interested in joining the women’s soccer team, can sign up on JagSync or contact recreational sports at 210-784-1349.
