By: Shelby Soltau '16
SANTA CLARA, Calif. –
With eight other freshmen on the Santa Clara University women's soccer roster, goalkeeper Andi Tostanoski hopes to make an impact on the team in her first collegiate season. Tostanoski is still in the process of recovering from her groin injury that happened in a game nine months ago. "It has been a grueling process to recover from but the experience was incredibly motivating," said Tostanoski. She took one month off of playing so that she could recover all of the muscles in her groin.
After this, Tostanoski was able to do strengthening exercises and cardio workouts before she could eventually get back out on the field in games again. She was unable to attend a national team camp due to this groin injury which really pushed her to work even harder to recover so that she could be eligible to attend the next camp if the opportunity is presented to her.
In her spare time, Tostanoski enjoys volunteer work. She has spent about 200 hours as a volunteer soccer coach for the past few years. Tostanoski works with kids from age four to high school students and really enjoys the personal interactions with the young athletes. She is an athlete that inspires others, but there are also many people who inspire her on the field as well.
Tostanoski finds encouragement from some of her older teammates who she looks up to. Senior midfielder Meleana Shim inspires Tostanoski through her leadership of the soccer team. Junior midfielder Allie Vernon is motivational for Tostanoski because of her hard work and ability to always stay positive through challenging situations. Finally, junior midfielder Julie Johnston leads by example and is always critical of her team and of herself. These motivators help Tostanoski create her own goals in order to help her team.
Tostanoski's main focus in games is "distribution and communication." As a goalkeeper, Tostanoski gets a front row view of everything going on in the game. She aspires to effectively connect herself with the team through words in order to take some pressure off her teammates.
So far, she loves being at SCU and says the team has been very welcoming to her and all of the other freshmen. "They understand that I'm a freshman and that I'm going to make mistakes, but they also challenge me to be the best player I can be," said Tostanoski.
Go Broncos!