NOVEMBER 3, 2011
\nBy Summer Woods \u201814, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
Winning is something Jessica Smith has become accustomed to during her four years at Furman, on and off the field.<\/p>\n
On the field she is a captain and four-year starter on the women\u2019s soccer team. Off the field she has excelled academically as a chemistry major and plans to attend pharmacy school next fall.<\/p>\n
After playing in more than 75 matches and making more than\u00a0323 saves, Smith will graduate as one of the most decorated keepers in Furman soccer history.\u00a0Her\u00a00.98 career goals-against average is the all-time best at Furman, and she is\u00a0tied for second in Paladin history with 23 career shutouts.<\/p>\n
She also garnered second team All-SoCon accolades this season.<\/p>\n
As one of eight seniors on the team, Smith\u00a0looks back fondly on her years\u00a0at Furman.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on the soccer team has definitely had a tremendous impact on my life and on my time at Furman,\u201d she says. \u201cAs I have gotten older, though, I have realized how much being a college athlete has helped me develop as a person – particularly in leadership and time management.\u00a0When I began starting in goal as a freshman, I was thrown into a leadership position where I was asked to be an example for girls that were for the most part older than me. This was extremely intimidating.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if being a Division I athlete isn\u2019t time consuming enough, Smith also excels off the field academically with a 3.964 GPA.\u00a0She has been a member of the SoCon honor roll every year and was a 2010 Academic All-District III selection.\u00a0She is also involved in\u00a0Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the pre-health society and\u00a0the\u00a0American Chemical Society, and is a chemistry tutor.<\/p>\n
Coach Andrew Burr describes Jessica as \u201can excellent leader for our soccer program both on and off the field. She has shown the ability to have a balanced collegiate career by being committed to a high level soccer program in addition to maintaining an impressive academic standard. She has had a wonderful career at Furman and I know that she will continue to have success as she goes through life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith will continue to lead her team in its quest for a Southern Conference title and NCAA tournament appearance this weekend as Furman heads\u00a0to Greensboro Friday to face top-seeded Samford in the semifinals. The Lady Paladins have a 12-7-2 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a team we are playing some of our best soccer, and I think we have a great chance of winning SoCon this year,\u201d says Smith. \u201cI know this is especially a huge game for the seniors, because we as a class have never beaten Samford.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans may follow the game through live stats at www.FurmanPaladins.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NOVEMBER 3, 2011
\nBy Summer Woods \u201814, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
Winning is something Jessica Smith has become accustomed to during her four years at Furman, on and off the field.<\/p>\n
On the field she is a captain and four-year starter on the women\u2019s soccer team. Off the field she has excelled academically as a chemistry major and plans to attend pharmacy school next fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}