Vincentian footballer, Chelsea Cordice, now a sophomore student at Cloud County Community College at Kansas in the United States has signed to play as a goalkeeper for Salem University in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division 2 Football Championship next season.
Originally a midfielder, Cordice said; “At first, I was a bit nervous about the switch. But then I really got into it and I enjoy the adrenaline during the game. I had a few years of goalkeeper experience back in high school, but the training was nothing like it was here.”
Cordice played like a natural in the latter part of the 2018 season, finishing with an 8-1 record in 10 appearances while posting a .889 save percentage.
She finished with a total of 24 saves and tallied six shutouts, helping the T-Birds to a 15-3 overall record, and an appearance in the Region V1 semi-finals.
Charles Long, the first-ever head coach of the T-Birds, said the idea to try Cordice out at goal simply came about as an idea to keep her active while she was hampered with lower body injuries.
Cordice will now join another winning program at Salem, which finished 13-3-1 last fall in the Eastern College Athletic Conference.
Long said that with Cordice still being new to goalkeeping at the Collegiate level there were areas to polish, which would give her a high ceiling over her final two years at Salem in West Virginia.
He said: “Reaction time and communication are probably the two areas she’ll need to work on and I think Salem will help her with that once she starts training again on a regular basis. “Her ceiling is up to her. She can go as far as she likes because she is very dedicated at it.”
Chelsea Cordice,
sophomore student at Cloud County Community College.
