Valeria Gonzalez,  the girl with the number 8 behind her jersey.  Since freshmen year making it to the varsity team and now currently a junior still on varisty. Valeria’s journey hasn’t been easy at all.  Many disciplines and a lot of emotions came through her journey.  She worked hard and disciplined herself to push her to be a great player and to physically be mentally ready and focused.  We had in interview with her and she said “Soccer isn’t as easy as it looks,  it takes a lot of effort and patency to get to where I am right now” she said.  She also mentioned how she fell in love with the sport at a young age “When I was around 4 years old,  I picked up a soccer ball for the first time and started kicking it around,  from that moment I realized I fell in love with the sport and that’s what I wanted to do.”

Not only is she a great soccer player, but she is a leader and a great motivator.  If she sees a teammate down,  she’ll pick them right back up. Valeria always gives her 100% on practices and on games.  She told us that during freshmen year,  she would barely have playing time and through those moments,  she had a fall down.  She slowly stopped trying as much,  she thought she’ll never make it to her goals or achieve her dreams.   She explained to us that at that moment she was giving up until she came upon a quote that shaped her.  A quote from Cristiano Ronaldo “If you don’t believe that you are the best,  then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.”

From then on, Valeria trained everyday right after school and did not leave until the sun went down.  She started being involve with people that helped her to get where she is right now and motivated her to keep going and to never give up.  From all the hard work, Valeria is finally happy with herself.  She is now a starting player for the girls NHS soccer team and receive scholarships from other soccer clubs.  She is proud that she got up and kept going but she told us that she’s still not stopping and still working to reach for her dreams.

Advice to all of us from Valeria is to never give up and chase for that one thing you want the most and to not listen to the people doubting on you.