Kickin’ it with Hayley Ferrell

    As the gates opened on GCSU’s 2007 soccer season, Hayley Ferrell took off sprinting with her aggressive play right from the start.
    “I’m the b**** out there on the field,” Ferrell said. “I can be kind of mean, I’m honest, and I expect a lot out of the people around me, and especially from myself. Sometimes I may not be the greatest leader because I’m more of a grouch. I’m just super competitive and have really high expectations.”
    In the first five games of the young season Ferrell, a junior forward, has already recorded six goals. The entire rest of the team has accumulated a total of four.
    “I’m in a lot better shape than I was in last year,” Ferrell said. “I think that is contributing a lot to how well I have started off.”
    Ferrell put her excellent conditioning on display when she scored three goals against the University of North Alabama on Sept. 9; it was only the second hat trick in school history.
    “That was pretty cool,” Ferrell said. “Lyric (Burnett) started it off last year, and this time I just was, kind of, in the right place at the right time to be able to do it, too.”
    Under her leadership the Bobcats are off to their best start in school history winning four or the team’s first five games, and outscoring opponents ten to four, including shutouts of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Florida Tech and Thomas University.
    Ferrell and Head Coach Robert Parr agree that the combination of an excellent recruiting class and the leadership of veteran players is the key to the team’s early success.
    “This year we have a lot of new freshmen who are contributing more which makes it a lot more competitive, and I think we also came in, you know, with more people in shape,” Ferrell said. “More people are meeting standards than before because of that competitiveness with the younger and older players.”
    No player has been more influential in the building of Bobcat soccer than Ferrell. In her career she has posted 20 goals, the most in GCSU’s short soccer history.
    “(Ferrell) has really worked hard in the off season,” Parr said. “We knew she was good already, but her preparation to get her fitness to such a high level for this season shows.”
    Ferrell said she first started playing soccer when she was about eight and was drawn to the game.
    “(I) started off playing with guys, then I got into playing with girls and playing club (soccer),” said Ferrell.
    She entered high school at Eagles Landing High School in McDonough, GA, in the fall of 2001, where over the next four years she would letter in soccer, cross country, volleyball and basketball.
    “We knew that someone, like Hayley, who excelled at so many sports in high school would have what it makes for a well-rounded athlete in college athletics,” Parr said.
    Ferrell especially excelled in soccer.  She accumulated four All-County selections in Henry County, Soccer Athlete of the Year and Player of the Year honors, and was named to ten All-Region teams by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
    “High school (soccer) was a lot of fun,” Ferrell said. “My high school coach (Harry Kustick) was one of the best coaches I’ve ever had. He was a really good guy and I still keep in touch with him.”
    After graduating Ferrell headed to GCSU to play soccer and study Mass Communication.
    Parr said bringing Ferrell into the program was an easy decision.
    “We had been following her play since she was a sophomore (in high school), then she tore her ACL her junior year playing basketball, but we knew where she was before the injury,” Parr said. “She was even named County Player of the Year by the AJC. So, when we saw her in her senior year and she wasn’t quite all the way back, we still knew she would be competitive at this level.”
    Ferrell said when she came to visit GCSU’s campus she immediately fell in love.
    “It was kind of out of the blue, I told my dad that I wanted to go visit the campuses around Georgia,” Ferrell said. “And I just came down here  and they had my major. Soccer had a little to do with it too, especially with it being a new program and all.”
    This year Ferrell has begun working in the Sports Information Department for Al Weston, the sports information director.
    “Hayley is a (Mass Communication) major, and I wanted to help her along with her career,” Weston said. “She wants to be in the area of sports, and especially in (public relations). So, I have had her working on a couple of feature pieces and book keeping with bios and things.”
    Hayley and the Bobcats are back in action on Saturday at 2 p.m. when they take on the University of Alabama at Huntsville at home.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 21 2007. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry