Student-Athlete of the Week

By the time she reached high school, senior keeper Quinn Gossett thought her soccer playing days were well behind her, but an impulsive decision to try out for the Niwot girls team as a ninth-grader resurrected a long buried passion for the game, even if it took a few days to surface.

"I stopped playing in fourth grade, and I really don't know why," Gossett said, recalling her return to the sport at the invitation of former Cougar junior varsity coach Jeremy Drake. "On that first day of tryouts freshman year, I got hit in the face, and I cried in front of Coach Dimit. I thought I was going to get cut from the team, and I was trying so hard to hold it in. But I didn't get cut, and that was good. And then goalkeeping just kind of clicked for me. That's the position that I kind of forgot that I loved."

Gossett made her debut on the Cougar varsity roster as a sophomore, playing in four games, and finally ascended to the starting job in 2019. After a productive off-season, she was looking forward to capping off her high school career in 2020 under first-year head coach Jenna Machado, and competing for the Northern League title one last time. With the season now likely to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gossett is lamenting what could have been.

"We have a lot of young talent, and they see the field really well," she said. "Under coach Jenna, she has a lot of expectations for us fitness-wise, and is definitely going to make us put in the work, and we were going to be a much stronger team fitness-wise. She did a really great job those first two weeks teaching us some defensive plays, and how we're going to play out of the back. That's really important for me-having a team that can play out of the back that I can support through that. We were trying to get that locked in, and it was looking really good."

Gossett was initially drawn to the high-profile keeper position due to its privileged status on the field, and admits that's part of the attraction even now.

"I thought it was the coolest thing to get to touch the ball with your hands, and I wanted to do that," she said of her first stint in soccer back in elementary school. "I still think it's cool, and it's kind of funny that's how I got started."

Naturally, Gossett's understanding of the keeper's role is more sophisticated these days, thanks in part to a regular diet of CU women's soccer during the fall. But she still relishes her position's singular authority during the game.

"Goalkeepers are really essential to the team communication-wise. We are active for the whole game; we see the field play out in a much different way. We're looking for those patterns of attack from the other team, and we're also watching how our team is playing, and how we can start counter-attacks. I think a lot of goalkeeping is looking for patterns."

Goalkeepers are also subject to a lot of scrutiny, and ultimately shoulder the blame for opposing goals and losses, whether justified or not. Gossett has learned to deal with the pressure by pouring it into her play on the field, but sometimes she can't help but give voice to it.

"I have a pretty aggressive style of goalkeeping, coming off my line, but I try to channel that energy to everything," she said. "Sometimes I need my teammates to remind me to calm down a little bit and take a deep breath. Because sometimes I might not be active for the first 20 minutes of the game, but when I am, it's 100 percent. That energy might come out when I'm talking and communicating with my team as well."

While Gossett is waiting for CHSAAs final whistle on the 2019-20 season, she has a career at the collegiate level to contemplate. Earlier this month, she committed to play keeper for the women's soccer team at Chapman University in Orange, California. In 2019, the Panthers recorded seven shutout wins and ended at 11-4-3 on the year to take third in the NCAA Division III SCIA Conference, their best finish since 2016.

"They're super competitive," Gossett said of her future team. "Their goalkeeping program is really strong, and the coaches are really confident in this next recruiting class."

Chapman and the soccer program came to Gossett's attention via her parents, and she fell in love with the campus during a visit last fall. As of now, she plans to study engineering with an emphasis in design, but is still deciding on a potential career.

"I kind of want to design hypercores and look at alternative fuels that can be used that are more sustainable; not necessarily electric, but how can we take waste and turn it into a fuel," she said.

If that doesn't work out, Gossett may have a career in sports photography. For the 2019-20 season, she served as chief photographer and social media coordinator for the Niwot boys basketball team, and some of those shots found their way into the Courier.

"That was really fun," she said. Gossett's father, Mike, has been on the basketball coaching staff since 2017. "I really like watching basketball, and being right there watching the action and capturing it was really amazing. I hope I can maybe continue that at Chapman, and work sports photography into my schedule when I'm not in season."

Still, Gossett said, an exciting future at Chapman can't entirely replace what she, her senior teammates, and all high school and collegiate athletes around the country have lost during the worldwide pandemic.

"I really miss the community-when your teammates are on the field with you, and you're in class with them as well, and having community support and parents out there, and having our classmates cheering us on-it's an amazing community in the spring. I love the energy that comes out-sometimes the track team will come down and support us during our games. It's really cool to see. I definitely miss playing on that field. I think it's one of the prettiest fields I've ever played on, and probably will ever play on."