Out of the hundreds of thousands of girls that play high school soccer every year, there is something about Samantha Moxie ‘21 that differentiates her from the rest: she has scored one hundred goals for the Lady Eagles soccer team. The Eagle’s Eye reached out to Moxie for a chat about her feelings regarding this achievement, her time on the field, and the key role soccer has played in her life. 

EE: When did you start playing soccer and how did you get into the sport?

SM: Well, I started playing soccer at the age of four and I got into it because, well, my parents put me in soccer and my dad played soccer growing up and he loved this sport, so he wanted to see his daughter play it. So that’s why I started playing.

EE: Did you play any sports before soccer or was soccer the first sport you played?

SM: No. Yeah, soccer was the first and only sport I’ve ever played.

EE: What was your experience when first trying out for the Edison High School soccer team?

SM: I was obviously really nervous because everyone was older and I was just a freshman and I was little, so I was really scared, but I knew a lot of the girls from playing soccer with them from when I was younger. So I was a little comfortable coming in and I just tried to work my hardest and focus to make myself not as nervous.

EE: How does it feel to be one of the few students at Edison High to have scored a hundred goals in their career?

SM: It feels really good. I like that I can take an accomplishment away from my high school career. And I think it’s just, it’s just an achievement that also shows how hard our team worked and how they allowed me to get to a hundred goals. And I’ve been working since my freshman year for this. So it just really feels good.

EE: Are there any cool moments in your career you would like to share with us?

SM: Yes, actually. This year, we played one of our town rivals, Bishop Ahr, because they’re a private school in Edison. We haven’t played them in the past three years. And we were losing at first, 1-0 and then we were tied 1-1 in the second half and we went into overtime and it was still [tied] in the first quarter of overtime. And then in the second overtime, we won with, I think, 0.8 seconds left in the game. So that was a really important accomplishment for our team. We are a very young team this year. So it was really good seeing a freshman score a game-winning goal.

EE: What were the challenges you faced when managing sports and academics as a student athlete?

SM: The main challenge is just time management. I’m really bad at time management and I procrastinate a lot. So I had to learn that, you know, some days it’s better to get on a day that I have off. I need to get as much work done as I can or I’ll end up falling behind in school because I think school and sports go hand in hand. Academics is even more important because it can get you farther in life. So it’s just really important to always put school first. And you even like taking days off, if I have a big test or something due the next day, Athletics can only get you so far because your body, when you get old, you need to do a real job, you know, you need to have academics.

EE: How did you deal with other obstacles besides academics during your career?

SM: For me, I think my main challenge is the pressure, because I feel like a lot of the younger girls, as I got older, started to look up to me and a lot of girls that played my position, looked up to me on how to improve themselves. So the challenge for me was just always making sure that I’ve put out the best. I was composed all the time so that I can impact people that want to try to accomplish their  goals.

EE: Do you plan to play soccer in college?

SM: Yes. I am actually committed to East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina to play Division One soccer.