KELOWNA, BC – Calgary product Susan Traynor has signed her letter of intent to suit up for Heat women’s soccer coach Claire Paterson this fall to kick off the team’s first venture into the highest level of university sport in Canada.
With the graduation of fifth-year midfielder Taylor Sarchet, the Heat will need to bolster their depth at the position, and Traynor looks to be just the person for the job.
Traynor has been on Paterson’s radar for a little while now. “Susan was a stand out from our fall ID camp in Vancouver,” she said. “An athletic player, she has good individual skill and is a playmaker who sees the field well. She will be joining our returning midfield crew as they look to go up against the best players in Western Canada next season.”
Currently serving as the team captain for her team at St. Francis High School in Calgary, AB, she is also playing in Division 1 on the Blizzard Juventus. In her spare time she has coached youth teams aged 3-12 in the Calgary area.
Very active in soccer as a player and coach, she has accumulated a wealth of experience both inside and outside of Canada. Most notably she helped win a gold medal at the 2012 Copa Del Mar tournament in San Diego, CA, and captured another gold at the Provincial U-18 in 2013. She was recently awarded the 2012-13 High School Athlete of the Year award (for a full-list of her soccer accomplishments, see below).
Traynor will be entering into a B.A. program in psychology once making the move to the Okanagan, and is excited to begin her new life as a student-athlete at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
“I chose UBCO because it has a beautiful campus and has a smaller class size,” Traynor said of her new school come the fall.
Canada West will release their soccer schedule mid-June and you can catch Traynor and the rest of the Heat women’s soccer squad kick off in September of 2014. Check goheat.ca for more on UBC Okanagan women’s soccer and the schedule when posted in June.
List of Accomplishments:
- 2011 – Silver medal U-18 tier 1 provincials
- 2012 – Silver medal U-16 tier 1 provincials
- 2012 – Gold medal Copa Del Mar (San Diego)
- 2012 – Second place Final Four Showcase (San Diego)
- 2013 – Second place Vancouver Whitecaps Showcase
- 2013 – Provincial Champion U-18
- 2013 – 7th place at Canada youth nationals
