Morgan Wormley ’24 is in her first year as co-captain of the St. Joe’s Women’s Club Soccer team, Wormley, a long-time soccer player, is from Burlington, New Jersey, where she played for Burlington Township High School. At St. Joe’s, she is an accounting major and criminal justice minor. Her soccer position is right back.
The Hawk: How long have you been playing soccer?
Wormley: I’ve been playing since I was about six years old. I played throughout elementary school and then I took a break in middle school, and I started back up again in high school. So I played throughout high school. Club soccer started up again my sophomore year because freshman year was the COVID year, and there was nothing, so I started playing again.
The Hawk: Did you come to St. Joe’s knowing you wanted to play club soccer?
Wormley: I definitely wanted to play club soccer for sure, because I loved playing, and I wanted to keep playing, but not at such a serious level as you play for a [Division 1] team here.
The Hawk: How do you keep your team motivated?
Wormley: We definitely like to have our post-practice talk and post-game talks. During halftime, we do talks then, just to keep morale high. We point out good things that the team has been doing, but also things that we need to work on. There’s always a balance to being motivated to work on things that we need to work on. Also during practice, we like to keep the energy good and have fun all while incorporating game day things. Keeping the balance between those things is how we stay motivated.
The Hawk: How do you plan on turning around the hard start for your team?
Wormley: We plan on building team bonding and team chemistry more, because we did have to do tryouts this year because we had so many girls that were interested. Our roster is made up of a lot of girls who haven’t played together before, so our team chemistry on the field isn’t there yet. So working on that more, especially during practices and getting more of that experience during games, will help us flip that switch so we could be on a winning streak.
The Hawk: Describe a moment from one of those games where you knew that your team had the potential to win games.
Wormley: During our game Sunday, Sept. 18, where we played Temple, we started off slow but we realized Temple is very beatable, and we realized we need to make these quick switches and quick changes in order to beat Temple. We came out the second half and worked right away. Our energy was so much better. Our technique changed so much, and it was just like, we really do have the potential to win games if we keep this energy that we brought to the second half.
The Hawk: What are your goals this year as a team?
Wormley: Honestly, to just work together as a team because we have a lot of great players. At tryouts, everybody realized, “wow, there are really no bad girls trying out for this team.” So I feel like everybody knows we have extreme talent on this team, but we just need to play as a team instead of individual players. That’s a goal for the team, just to play as one whole team.
The Hawk: What are your goals as captain?
Wormley: My goal as captain is to keep the girls motivated as much as I possibly can, keep the energy high, and also be able to lead the girls. We all want to have fun, but I also want to help the girls recognize and keep them motivated to realize we want to win regionals. We want to win these games. So it is about fun, but it’s also about being very competitive. That’s something I want to help them remember.
