Liberty Goalkeeper Hopes to End Her Career With a Spring Season

Melody Jayroe certainly did not expect for her senior year to be like this.

When she arrived on the women’s soccer team as a freshman she made an immediate impact and never looked back, earning a starting position as goalkeeper and accumulating Big South All-Freshman honors, and culminating when she received the ASUN Goalkeeper of the Year award last season.

Her senior year, however, looks very different than anything she could have imagined. 

“This (fall) has been abnormal for sure,” Jayroe said. “Obviously, we should’ve been playing conference and nonconference games right now. But I think we’ve gotten used to it now, and we’ve been using this time as a team to get really close.”

Even with the many negatives that have come with COVID-19, Jayroe has found a silver lining.

“Usually we are traveling in the fall. Now that we aren’t, I’ve had more time to focus on school which has been a blessing,” Jayroe said. “With soccer, we know that we don’t have any games this fall, so when we are training, our goal is to focus on next season.”

Because of the cancellation of the official fall season, the soccer team is setting up intrasquad scrimmages to keep the team motivated and focused on what’s ahead.

“(The games) have been a lot of fun, I think they’ve shown us how much we’ve taken them for granted in the past, but now that those are the only games we get to play, we really look forward to them,” Jayroe said. “It’s a good way to get our competitiveness out and it’s really been keeping our spirits up.”

Last week, ASUN announced an official conference schedule for the spring season, which was exciting news for Jayroe and her teammates. At this point, the Lady Flames are scheduled to play eight conference games in the spring.

“Usually our offseason is in the spring and we haven’t played this fall, so I think we’re all really just antsy to play an opponent that isn’t ourselves,” Jayroe said. “Just being able to get out on the field and put your jersey on and just have the game-day feeling is something that we are all looking forward to.”

Assuming that the season goes ahead, the team’s first game will take place Feb. 28 at Osborne Stadium as the Flames take on Bellarmine University.

Emmanuel Adamson is a Social Media Manager. Follow him on Twitter at @Eadamson12.