Every spring season looks different for Division I men’s and women’s soccer teams across the country. For most programs, it’s about scraping together as many games as possible and working to refine various aspects of the squad.

But for a select few, like the Penn State women’s soccer team, the spring season is punctuated by a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel abroad and sample soccer in a foreign country.

Raquel Rodriguez talks with students.

The Nittany Lions traveled south to the Dominican Republic during their spring break in early March, providing a multitude of opportunities they wouldn’t have experienced in the confines of State College, Pa.

“I’ve had a chance to talk with some of the players since the trip, I think the overall feeling – and this happened when we went to Brazil – this turned out to be the best week of their four years of college,” Penn State head coach Erica Walsh told TopDrawerSoccer.com.

For six days, the Nittany Lions did a variety of different projects in and around Santo Domingo, the country’s capital. It included a pair of games against the Dominican Republic’s U20 Women’s National Team, hosting and running clinics before those games and spending time in schools working with junior high school-age kids.

Putting her high-level student athletes in these kinds of situations was the best part of the trip, according to Walsh. She got to see players not normally in the spotlight try to overcome the language barrier in a classroom full of children, or Costa Rican midfielder Raquel Rodriguez Cedeno come to life while speaking her native language.

It also pushed the team way out of its comfort zone, and she was pleased with the way they responded.

“I’ve always respected the student athletes that come through this program, but I have that much more respect watching them work with these kids, watching them take on this responsibility and understanding the responsibility, that we’re not just going in there to take pictures and give out items and donate,” she said. “It’s about making an impact on these kids’ lives and our kids really grabbed a hold of that opportunity, instead of being awkward and standing in a corner, letting the Spanish speakers talk. They were very involved, and you saw personality come out in players that are particularly reserved, and if they were in the U.S. might not take advantage of it.”

In the aftermath of the trip, Walsh noticed that the team seemed more unified over the past few weeks, as they can now appreciate what they have in Happy Valley.

“Without taking it too far, I think this trip has gone a long way to bring our players together, to help them to appreciate everything we have here at Penn State,” she said. “We try to give them that perspective as much as we can, they work in the community, we talk about the beauty of Jeffrey Field and our training field and how important it is to appreciate it, but you don’t understand that until you see the other side.”

A few games remain on the Nittany Lions’ spring slate, and with a strong core of players return this fall – including Rodriguez Cedeno, Mallory Weber, Emily Hurd, Brittany Basinger, Britt Eckerstrom and Kori Chapic, to name a few – the team is in a good place to contend for Big Ten honors once again.

But the coaching staff is also looking to ensure that what the players experienced away from the game this past spring continues within the area closer to home – both on and off the field. 

“We have a responsibility to make sure that we get into this community and obviously it’s not the same, but it’s an opportunity to impact and to connect with our community,” Walsh said. “I think the players are much more receptive of those ideas now that they’ve been through it, they felt it. Our hope is to be that much more involved in the surrounding community and to continue the work that we’ve done.”

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