She may be an intimidating force between the pipes, but don't let her game face fool you. Senior goalkeeper Amy Coron of the women's soccer team got her start by kicking around a big, yellow, fuzzy ball in an indoor YMCA league when she was just 3 years old.
Soccer runs deep in Coron's family, so she found it easy to stay involved in the game. Her dad played collegiate and semi-professional soccer before coaching her older brother's team. She credits both her dad and brother Jason as huge influences on her involvement in the sport.
If it wasn't for a little sibling rivalry, Coron, who is in the middle of her fourth consecutive season as the starting goalie, may have never been a Buffalo Bull. She chose the goalie position because of her brother.
'[Jason] just needed a target for him and his friends, so I was it, his little sister,' Coron said.
Coron has been motivated to stop oncoming shots ever since. In the three previous seasons, she accumulated 327 saves with an overall average of allowing 1.66 goals per game. This season, Coron continues to improve her career statistics with 56 saves and allowing only 1.39 goals per game thus far.
Coron's experience in front of the net helps her stay calm during games.
'I've been doing it for so long that I get excited,' she said. 'I want to be able to back up my team because they're obviously doing a lot more running than I am. They put in so much effort throughout the entire 90 minutes. I only have a few moments where I can come up big and I always hope I can.'
Coron may not get nervous before games, but she has some interesting pre-game rituals that she follows on a regular basis. She listens to the same playlist, always tapes her socks in the exact same way, and she wears the same warm-up shirt every time.
Coron is also particular when it comes to her water bottle. Once she takes one from the bin, it's her bottle for good. It has to stay in the same place in the goal, and when one of the other players takes a sip from it, they know to put it back where they found it.
She brings a competitive edge to the table both in games and in practice. Head coach Michael Thomas considers her a role model for a lot of the younger players on the team.
'Amy has been a model of consistency for the program,' Thomas said.
Coron could have graduated last spring, but chose to stay and play out her last year with the team. Despite her team's rough start, she remains optimistic about the remainder of the season.
'Hopefully we'll do the reverse of last year,' Coron said. 'We went undefeated for a good streak, so hopefully we'll have a longer streak of winning in the second part of this season and be able to turn it around.'
If the team doesn't turn it around, they could miss out on the Mid-American Conference Tournament for the sixth consecutive year. Coron doesn't want her final season to be cut short like it has been in the past.
'It'd be great if we could get to the playoffs,' Coron said. 'It's a goal – it's been a goal since freshman year and for the team since before I was here. It'd be great to be part of it.'
Coron is unsure of what the future holds for her after graduation. Her ideal career goal is to work in concert promotions. Graduating this December with a degree in business administration, she believes that she's headed in the right direction.
That is not to say that she will remove soccer from her life. No matter what happens after she graduates, Coron knows that she wants to coach.
E-mail: sports@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
