Senior forward Shannen Wacker is Florida Gulf Coast University’s women’s soccer team’s all-time points leader with 70 points.
She is currently ranked second in goal-scoring behind sophomore Tabby Tindell .
And she is third in the record book with 20 assists.
“I have a set goal to go out with 30 goals,” Wacker said. “I think that is fair in my own mind and is not an outrageous goal to get. I think I’m six away from the assist record and I want to maybe try to break that one as well. But I want to continue to play well and not lose focus.”
The back-and-forth between Tindell and Wacker has created a game of “who can score next” between the two players that is only helping the team succeed.
The game between Tindell and Wacker will continue to play out when the team heads to South Carolina to play USC Upstate this Friday, Oct. 3, as they see who will sit atop the all-time goals record after the game.
“It is a competition between her and me, but it is only positive,” Wacker said. “We only want each other to succeed and to help each other do that. We are more of a ‘no you take and you score’ kind of team than a personal ‘I’m going to do it, I’m selfish’ kind of thing. It makes the competition, it makes the games and it makes winning that much more exciting.”
Wacker is a senior this year and started playing soccer when she was 6. She played basketball and softball as well but found a connection on the soccer field.
“I just succeeded the most in soccer, Wacker said. “I found the most passion in it out of all of them and I just decided to stick with it.”
During her four years at FGCU, Wacker has grown as an individual. She has transferred a lot of what she has learned on the soccer field to the real world and her classes as a resort and hospitality management major.
“I think I have only gotten more mature in aspects of taking what you learn from being on the team and playing in games to the real world,” Wacker said. “It’s nice to be able to go to an employer and be like ‘Hey I know how to work on a team, be a leader, get things done, and be organized.’ They kind of go hand and hand and that is something that I have been able to pick up on and notice as I started working different jobs and going to school and maintaining good grades. It has been a lot to handle but it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it was going to be.”
Wacker’s plans for post-graduation are open. She thinks the right person will lead her to the right place. As for playing soccer professionally, Wacker would love the opportunity, but hasn’t taken any steps to go down that road.
“The idea has never been talked about,” Wacker said. “It would always be a sweet kind of thing if the opportunity is there to go play for a year or two overseas. I always wanted to go to Australia or somewhere cool. Just the experience would be sweet. But I have never really thought of the idea past that.”
Graduation will come, but for now Wacker is focusing on the team goal to get to the NCAA tournament. Currently, the team is 8-2 for the season and only wants to continue to secure wins.
“We are definitely only getting better,” Wacker said. “The people we have now and the incoming people are going to continue to make this program a better one. The girls right now realize how important this season is and how well we need to do to succeed. We are only getting better because of how we have succeeded so far playing these big-time schools and coming out with these results. We are not OK with losing the games we should have won and tied so we are only taking that and learning. We are going to continue to get better.”