Collegiate Times

Image: 2012-09-25 20:22:24

“We are a small community, so a good female athlete is wanted by every team in every sport,” Myatt said. “Dayle started to make the sacrifice of putting soccer ahead of other things, so she gave up opportunities to play other sports and it started paying off. It offered her the biggest challenges. She rose to the challenge and became the player she is because of her own hard work.”

At 12 years old, Colpitts started playing for Myatt and the Fredericton Caps, and he immediately noticed that she was special. 

“As a player, you always knew Dayle was a little different because she was so driven,” Myatt said. “We would always be the last two to leave the field. I would be taking shots with her long after everyone else had gone home. We would turn the cars to face the field and use the headlights so we could practice well into the dark.”

Around the same time, Colpitts was selected to play for Team New Brunswick – a unit comprised of the best players in the province. The team traveled the country playing tournaments, eventually working their way to the national championships — a weekend which hosted the ten best teams in Canada.

“You could realize right away she was at or above her peers,” Myatt said.

“I’m so competitive, and (soccer) was always so hard for me,” Colpitts said. “I was a strong athlete but it never came easy so that’s what pushed me forward. I was always working so hard at it.”

The hard work started to pay dividends towards the end of her high school career. Her junior year she was identified by the Canadian Soccer Association, and was slotted to play in the 2010 U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers. The next summer she was seen by then Hokies head coach Kelly Cagle and was invited down to visit Blacksburg.

“I visited Tech the summer going into my senior year of high school,” Colpitts said. “The recruiting process was late for me compared to most of my teammates, but I came down and visited Blacksburg. I knew right away I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I made up my mind that this is where I belonged.”

In spring of 2010, Colpitts, along with the rest of the U-20 Canadian National team, attended the World Cup qualifying tournament. The team failed to qualify for the World Cup that would be held later that year in Germany, but Colpitts refused to give up.

“It was one of the most exciting times and it was also one of the most disappointing,” she said.  “I knew I just wanted more. I didn’t want it to end. There is no bigger honor for me than to represent my country.”

After her graduation from high school, Colpitts continued to play the game she loved before leaving for Tech. She spent the summer playing for the Ottawa Fury of the United Soccer League. The semi-professional league spans the continent and is a hot spot for collegiate athletes.

Two years later she played in the USL once again, this time for the Colorado Rush. However, this go around she was preparing for a much grander stage than collegiate soccer. 

Having participated in frequent training camps with the Canadian team, both the U-20 and senior squad, she was asked once again to participate in the World Cup qualifier. For 11 days in March of 2012, the Canadian U-20 team participated in the CONCACAF qualifiers in Panama.  Colpitts squad won their semi-final match to qualify for the World Cup being held in Japan of that same year.

In August the team arrived in Japan for the tournament, and they were only concerned with soccer.

“We didn’t get to do a lot of sight seeing, we were mostly focused on the tournament,” she said. “But Japan was amazing and I want to go back and explore more.”

On Aug. 20, almost two weeks after arriving in Japan to play exhibition matches, the squad played their first World Cup match against Argentina. The Canadians were victorious by a score of 6-0, however that would be their sole victory in Japan.

Their next game was against Norway, in which a Canadian victory would have secured them a spot in the next round. Team Canada couldn’t hold a 1-0 halftime lead and the Norwegians were victorious 2-1.

“In the third group game we played North Korea, one of the top teams at the U-20 level,” Colpitts said. “That was a must win against one of the top teams in tournament and again we didn’t get the result. It was disappointing more than anything else, but competing on the world stage helped me grow a lot and I definitely took a lot out of it. I was getting better every day with those players.”

Colpitts, who will be ineligible to play in the next U-20 World Cup due to age restrictions, did what she always did, and continued to work hard to improve.

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 26 issue of the Collegiate Times.