When Catherine Apker played her first varsity soccer game, she wasn’t even a teenager. Now, she’s the starting goalkeeper at a division one school. 

Growing up, Apker played a variety of sports. She played soccer, of course, but also played basketball and baseball (and later softball), did gymnastics (and was a state champion), and even bowled in a local league. In the end, she chose soccer, “because once [she] became a goalkeeper it felt like [she] was combining all of her [sports]. The hand-eye coordination from basketball, the kicking from basketball…and the diving and sliding of softball and baseball.” 

Another key reason why she chose soccer was because she’s “always been big on team sports.” Being a goalkeeper is both an individual position and the most connected position on the team. It’s individual in the sense that you’re the only one playing that position on the field, and play often moves to the complete other side of the pitch without you. However, to be a goalie you have to be able to connect with your teammates and lead them. This is often one of the hardest things about being a goalie, according to Apker. To be a successful goalie, you need to be able to “anticipate the play and try to organize all ten girls in front of [you].” To do this, you need to be able to communicate effectively and successfully. While Apker may be quiet off the field, she’s grown into a commanding presence on the field. This is one of the things that makes a player stand out to a coach, and what helped her get recruited to top schools like Syracuse and Lafayette. 

In college athletics, the recruiting process ramps up junior year. Coaches can start calling you, emailing you, and inviting you on official visits. During Apker’s junior year, she’d frequently have to leave practice to take a call from a college coach. It’s hard to make a decision, especially because “a lot of schools try to deceive you when you’re in their recruiting process and try to sell it as more than it is.” That’s one of the reasons she ended up at Lafayette College, because “what they showed was exactly what [she] got and [she was] very grateful for that.”

When she got to college, it was new territory in more ways than one. It was in a different state, three hours away from home, and she was living with people she didn’t know for the first time in her life. She also went from starting every game to stuck on the sideline, watching someone else play ahead of her. Apker says that not playing was “a challenge [she] thought [she] was ready for, but it hit harder than expected.” However, she says that the ‘team itself just really got me through it…It just didn’t really matter that I wasn’t playing.” 

During her freshman year, she played forty-five minutes, starting against Princeton in a mid-year non-conference game. Her sophomore year, she came in hungrier for more. Back home, everyone knew what she was capable of. She dominated in high school and at the travel soccer level, and nearly everyone in the surrounding area had played her in one sport or another. At Lafayette, however, she had a chance to truly prove to others, and more importantly herself, that she could compete at a higher level.

Unsurprisingly, she did just that. In her sophomore year she started all fifteen games, playing just over 1300 minutes. She had a .848 save percentage (16th in the nation - out of the 351 division one women’s soccer teams), tied Lafayette’s single-season shutout record (8, which was also 43rd in the nation), and clocked 5.20 saves per game (50th in the nation). She was the Patriot League Goalkeeper of The Week three times, and made the end-of-year Patriot League Second Team. Out of all of these accomplishments, her favorite was her first start this year (A 3-0 win against Siena where she had six saves) because “it just finally felt like [she] actually made it and was completing a goal of [her’s] that [she] worked so hard for.” Her favorite moment this season was the team’s win against Lehigh, Lafayette’s biggest rival, when she ended the game with an impossible-seeming save that sealed the victory and the shutout. 

Being a student-athlete is no easy task, especially at an academically focused school like Lafayette. Being a three sport athlete at Homer “definitely gave [her] a glimpse of how to balance [her] academic life and [her] sports life,” but it’s hard to compare the rigor of high school academics and sports to the rigor of college athletics and sports. 

To be the best in the classroom and on the field, Apker says it’s best to “find your daily routine and just stick with it.” She likes to study in the morning, and before and after practices. Since all of the girls on her team are also focused on school, she says that “bus rides and study sessions are always fun because you’re doing it together and everybody’s working hard.” On game days, her routine changes. Most days she “start[s] with a coffee and a walk to get [her] mind cleared and get some energy.” She also tries to disconnect her mind from any other distractions, by trying “not to study and do too much schoolwork.”

Immediately before a game, her team is in the locker room “having a little dance party to get [their] spirits high and get ready for the game.” When asked if she has any pregame superstitions, she immediately says no. She says that not having superstitions “keeps it easy on days that things don’t go as planned because then you don’t have something to blame, or a reason in your head that you’re not going to do well.” With a schedule that is anything but routine, expecting the unexpected seems to be the best tactic. 

In the fall, Apker is determined to break more records. Before that, though, she’ll play spring soccer, scrimmaging some of the best schools in the region. She says that the spring season holds one of the keys to success for the upcoming season, allowing the team to “get [their] underclassmen ready to become leaders…and fill the shoes of our seniors.” Then, she’ll spend the summer going between New York and North Carolina. In North Carolina, she’ll train and coach with Women’s World Cup winning goalkeeper Tracy Noonan. In New York, she’ll continue to train, but will also spend some much-needed time recharging with her family and friends. In both states, she’ll work on improving the accuracy and strength of her distributions, which are “a good tool to start [the] attack” for the upcoming season. 

Next season, she hopes to make the playoffs. In her freshman and sophomore seasons, Lafayette needed to win their last game (ironically, both years they played Navy) to make the playoffs. Both years, they weren’t able to pull off the win. It was a tough way to end the season, especially this year, because the team was “so close…and it definitely should’ve happened,” according to Apker. 

Halfway through her college career, Apker has set her goals for her future. She wants to make first team All Patriot League and be captain her senior year. After college, she’d “like to play a couple years pro, whether it be overseas or here in the US.” Women’s soccer is on the rise globally with established leagues in numerous countries, including the US, England, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In the US, the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) has gained enough popularity to add multiple expansion teams, and in England, women’s teams are selling out the 60,000 capacity men’s stadiums for the first time in history. There is no industry rising faster than Women’s Sports (For reference, Deloitte predicted that in 2024, women’s sports would bring in one billion dollars in revenue for the first time in history), and Apker is sure to be part of that movement.