All it took was a simple piece of paper four years ago to change the course of Brigitte Fox?s life.
Preparing for her senior season at Grossmont High in El Caljon, Calif., Fox received a letter from Navy women?s soccer coach Carin Gabarra gauging an interest in playing for her team.
“I never thought about a service academy before,” Fox said. “I just wanted to play Division I soccer.”
Fox?s desire led her to travel 2,700 hundred miles across the country. It was the right decision. She has emerged as one of the Midshipmen?s most reliable scorers the past four years, and is having her finest season this fall. The forward has a team-high 13 goals ? the most ever by a Navy senior ? and three assists to lead the Midshipmen to the third seed in the four-team Patriot League Tournament this weekend following its 2-0 win over visiting Army on Monday.
Navy (12-4-4 overall, 4-1-2 league) will play second-seeded American (10-5-3, 4-0-3) at 4 p.m. Friday, with Army (7-7-3, 3-3-2) challenging top-seed and tournament host Bucknell (10-7-1, 5-1-1) at 7 p.m. The winners will play Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., with the winner receiving an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament. Navy is the defending Patriot League champion and is one year removed from advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.
“Last season was indescribable,” said Fox, who missed most of her sophomore season with a knee injury. “Just getting a taste of that has really driven us these last few weeks and we want to get back there and experience that again.”
The Midshipmen enter this weekend having won four straight and are 6-0-2 in their past eight games. Navy?s turnaround happened after an early season stretch when the Midshipmen lost three of four in non-conference play.
“It?s always our goal to get better throughout the season,” Gabarra said. “We?ve had a few bumps along the way, but we got through it by playing sound defensively and we keep scoring goals.”
Fox, whose 72 career points are sixth-most in school history, represents the bulk of Navy?s offensive production. But Gabarra has put together a deep team that has 18 players with at least a goal or an assist this fall. Senior forward Kari Weniger is second on the team in scoring with three goals and seven assists. Defensively, junior goalie Lizzie Barnes has 51 saves and a .750 save percentage.
“Some other teams you take one player out of the game and the whole team shuts down,” Weniger said. “That?s not the case here at the Naval Academy. You can double-team someone on our team, but that just opens up an opportunity for someone else to score.”
