Knee tear, months of recovery, missed tryouts. Then senior Militza Almoney couldn’t afford club soccer. Three years without the sport.
“Soccer has always just been a part of my life since I was a little kid,” Almoney said. “That's when I realized how important it was. I went through a whole crisis of like, ‘Can I even call myself a soccer player if I'm not playing for a team right now?’ And that led me down a whole spiral.”
But after all this, Almoney verbally committed to playing soccer at MidAmerica Nazarene University.
She started soccer at three years old with Smart Start — a developmental program that allows participants to work with their parents to begin developing motor skills necessary to participate in league soccer. Then when she was 6, she started to play more competitively.
When her family lived in Utah up until 2020, her dad owned the recreation center, Provo Community Center and coached Militiza and her team. There, she mostly played with friends from school.
“[My parents] both worked together to do it,” Almoney said. “It was mostly my dad, and I still will play soccer with him on the weekends and just do 1v1s with him just for extra training and for fun.”
In middle school, after moving to Kansas City and going to Corinth Elementary for sixth grade for a week, she started playing club soccer for Kansas City Fusion and eventually moved on to Kansas City Athletics in high school.
Both Almoney’s parents played soccer; her dad played for Brigham Young University, and her mom played throughout high school.
“I remember I moved to a new school, and it was really hard for me to make friends,” Almoney said. “I mean, it was fifth and sixth grade, everybody grew up there already. And so I started playing Rec and a bunch of the girls started playing in that rec league too, and my parents were coaching them. So I got in with a lot of kids, and made a lot of friends that way.”
Freshman year, Almoney played for the SM East girls soccer C-team. Sophomore year after not making the soccer team, she switched over to track and continues this year.
“I have a lot of friends [on track], so it's always not just going through the motions, it's just hanging out with friends,” Almoney said.
MidAmerica Nazarene University came to one of her club games last year, talked to her coach and got her number. The program reached out and said, “Hey, we’d like to see you at one of our camps.”
So she went to one of their camps. And then to a recruitment camp where she met the coaches and most of the teammates — this is when the university reached out with a recruitment offer.
“It really came out of nowhere,” Almoney said. “It wasn't something I’d considered before. But I really liked the opportunity. It's close by and I'm still able to connect with my family. And with the scholarship, it's a lot more affordable.”
Almoney is excited to play more competitively and try out managing staying healthy and making new friends, even with the rigorous schedule involving two practices a day.
Almoney describes the MidAmerica Nazarene soccer program as very committed, and the coaches as impressionable. Not only are they skill-focused, but they aren’t just focused on the best players, but everyone.
“I think that was why I got the offer, and that was why I want to work with them,” Almoney said. “Just because I know I'm not the best, but I want to be so awesome.”
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