When Lara Traczyk joined the Unionville-Milliken Strikers under-18 girls' soccer team a year ago, she did so with a specific purpose.

While the 17-year-old Markham native goes out on the pitch to help her team win games and tournament titles, she has also had a personal goal.

That was to try and continue her soccer career at the post-secondary school level.

In doing so, she wanted to try and earn an athletic scholarship.

Traczyk recently attained her goal as she accepted an offer to continue her education and play soccer this fall at the University of North Dakota.

MAIN GOAL

"Getting a soccer scholarship had been one of my goals since I started playing for the Unionville Strikers just over a year ago," she said. "I knew this team would help me achieve my goal."

A Grade 12 student who plays centre midfield and presently attends Monseigneur-de-Charbonnel, a French school in North York, Traczyk said her big opportunity to receive exposure came last December when her Strikers team travelled to Florida to compete in the Orange Classic Tournament.

It was here where a coach from the North Dakota, a Division II program, saw Traczyk perform.

To visit a school thousands of kilometres away from Markham had Traczyk a little skeptical.

But once she set foot on the Grand Forks, N.D., campus, she felt much more at ease.

After checking out the school and the soccer program, she realized the school was a good fit for her.

"I wanted to go to a good-sized school that has a good athletic program as well as academics," she said. "I was really interested in their physical therapy program which is what I'm planning on taking next year. Also, I met the team and the coaches when I was down there and got to watch them during a training session. They all seemed really nice and liked to have fun yet still took soccer seriously.

"That was another reason why I wanted to attend this university. I want to have fun while playing soccer and work hard to improve my game. I had talked to other coaches after the Orange Classic, but North Dakota was the university that I was most interested in."

Traczyk, who made her organized soccer debut when she was eight years old with the Markham Soccer Club, credits the Strikers' coaching staff, including head coach Mark Rodrigues, and her teammates with helping her succeed.

"I've learned so much from them, especially in the past year and a half," she said.