Sliding at the soccer ball, junior Ashley Molinari steals the ball from the attacker’s foot, dribbling it up the middle of the field and launching it to her forward teammate. As the team scores, Molinari celebrates in the center of the field with her team, taking in all the excitement and relief from all the work she has put into soccer. Following a lifetime of soccer experience, Molinari’s work and achievements both on and off the field have led to a great start with college recruiting.

Starting on June 15, colleges and teams are allowed to talk with and recruit players. Molinari began her process from this day forward by reaching out and sending in game clips.

“The biggest thing is sending emails and staying consistent when reaching out to the teams. I also go through my game film and make highlight tapes to send out to colleges,” Molinari said.

Recruiting for most young athletes can be a very stressful and time consuming process; however, many athletes receive a recruiter to help them out along the way. Molinari explains that she has a lot of support and help with her recruiting process.

“The biggest people who help me with recruiting would be my team, my coach, my parents and my recruiter. My recruiter helps me email and reach out to many colleges as well as suggest teams that would be a good fit for me,” Molinari said.

One big support system for Molinari is her father Mark Molinari. Mark Molinari has been a big part of Ashley Molinari’s recruiting process and next steps towards college.

“For recruiting, we have put together a recruiting profile using a service called Sports Recruits. When you put your profile on the service, coaches have access to it and you will get notified when they look at your own. We have also hired a personal recruiter that will reach out to colleges and hopefully drum something up for Ashley,” Mark Molinari said.

Ashley Molinari is striving for the best, in hopes to play college ball at the Division One collegiate level. With her profile being out for some time now, she has received interest from a lot of top schools.

“I’ve reached out to a lot of schools in the Big Ten and smaller Division One schools. I have also gotten a lot of interest from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Indiana State and Loyola in Chicago,” Ashley Molinari said.

Ashley Molinari plays for Galaxy Soccer in Naperville. Her team has played all over the country in many different games and tournaments coming out with a record of 4-1-3 with 11 more games to go in the season.

“Ashley has been all over, she’s been to Florida, Arizona and all over the Midwest. As they qualify for tournaments they end up anywhere around the nation,” Mark Molinari said.

Playing for her club team not only makes Ashley Molinari a better soccer player and gives her valuable experience but also gives her a chance to be looked at by many different scouts. Since her team travels all around the country to play in games, it opens up a variety of different colleges that don’t scout games in Illinois.

“They’re going to create and give you the opportunity to play in these tournaments and hopefully the recruiters will be there. When you play at the academy level, the farther you go the more Division One schools you will get. We are only eight games in this year, so we haven’t really seen the recruiters we wanted to see but hopefully this summer we’re gonna get to see some of those,” Mark Molinari said.

As athletes start to commit to their colleges, many individuals start to get stressed out about not making their decision yet. Ashley Molinari believes that when committing you need to take your time and not compare yourself to others.

“There’s honestly no rush. It’s whenever I find the right place, so it could be a year or could be three months. The biggest thing is not comparing myself to others because it is easy to bring yourself down. Everyone runs their own race,” Ashley Molinari said.

Ashley Molinari is getting ready for her upcoming tournament on Nov. 30 in California, which will have a variety of different scouts from all around the country ranging from Division Three to Division One.