College Athlete of the Week

Year, school: Sophomore, Western Washington University

Sport: Soccer

Hometown: Mill Creek (Jackson High School)

What he did: Scored his first collegiate goal, coming off the bench to tally the game-winner in the 86th minute of Western’s 3-1 victory over St. Martin’s University on Saturday.

What’s next: The Vikings (4-4 overall, 3-2 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) are in Arizona for games against Grand Canyon and Cal Baptist. Western’s next home game is Oct. 20 against Montana State-Billings.

The two-minute drill
Well, you certainly picked a good time to score your first collegiate goal, huh?
(Laughs) Yeah. Yeah, I did.

So what happened on the goal?
I basically got subbed in with about five minutes to go, and I saw an opportunity in the box and took my first strike. I placed it well, and it went in the goal. I believe that was my first touch.

How long were you actually in the game before you scored?
Probably about a minute.

So do you lead the country in goals per minute?
(Laughs) I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know if they keep statistics on that.

Did you even have enough time to come up with a goal-scoring celebration dance?
No, I don’t think I’ve scored enough to have one yet. I was more shocked than I was celebrating.

So I assume you’ll be in the starting lineup now?
Yeah, hopefully. I just actually sprained my foot last night. So the upcoming trip (to Arizona), I probably won’t be attending because I’ll be healing my foot. Hopefully after that, it seems plausible I’ll be starting.

How did that happen?
I tripped and rolled my foot forward. And I sprained the bottom of my foot.

Any truth to the rumor that the guy who’s starting job you were going to take sprained your foot?
(Laughs) I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Your father, David, wrestled at Eastern Washington University, and your mother, Christine, ran track at SPU. Did either of those sports ever interest you?
No. I played baseball a while ago, but I quit to play select soccer. I just wanted to focus on that instead of baseball. That’s when I stopped playing other sports.

Could you take your dad down, if it came to that?
No way.

What about your mom? Can you out-run her?
I don’t know. (Laughs) I don’t know if I’d ever actually tried to. I never had to.

You must’ve been a good kid then.
I guess so, yeah. (Laughs)

It says in your bio that you plan on majoring in computer science or music. I assume you tell the girls it’s music, huh?
Actually, that’s old information. I’m kind of moving more towards an international business idea. I’m taking business classes — and classes in Japanese. But I still definitely love playing music and can probably see that in my future; I just won’t major in it.

Well, international business isn’t bad. The chicks probably dig that, too.
(Laughs) Yeah, it’s close.

What instruments do you play?
Piano and guitar. I’ve definitely played piano longer. I started playing guitar a year or two ago. It wasn’t as hard as I thought. I think piano definitely helped, just knowing the basics of playing an instrument.

Did you play classical music? Or were you in a band?
When I was taking lessons, I definitely played classical — and jazz and contemporary. But I was in a band in high school. It wasn’t really a band; it was a bunch of friends playing more than anything. We never got to agreeing on a name.

Well, since you have some time on your hands now, are you going to work on that goal-scoring dance?
I definitely want to be a main goal scorer — and should be a main goal scorer. I was kind of hurt at the beginning of the year, and these last few weeks I started to build up confidence and was in match-fit shape to be able to play 100 percent for longer than 10 minutes. I think it’s been more of a confidence thing than a skill thing. Players can get in slumps or they can get on a roll and go crazy. But the more you’re on a roll, the easier it is to stay on a roll.

So what kind of dance will you break out after your next one?
I used to do a front handspring when I scored three goals back in my select days. Maybe I’ll have to get back to that. (Laughs)