Sara Virostek '20 Recruiting Profile

Since I started playing lacrosse at the age of eight-years-old, I have had such a strong connection to the sport, because it has given me the opportunity to challenge myself. The challenge has continued to this day, because of the reputation of longer tenured East Coast teams versus my Western Pennsylvania team. Western Pennsylvania does not have the history and reputation that many other east coast teams enjoy.  However, this year my club team has achieved a high rate of success due teamwork and motivation.  I have strived to practice hard and push myself and my teammates to contribute to a higher standard.  In my early years, I was fortunate to play up with older players, and yet that was confined to local teams. The success I achieved was due to lack of meaningful challenge due to shortage of high caliber players. Then, I joined a club team four years ago and we were humiliated by the best ranked teams in the country in some of our first tournaments. That experience lit my fire and after that year, my team has had great success against some of those very same teams. While it has been gratifying experiencing recent success, I believe that college lacrosse will afford me more room to learn and grow in this sport that I love. I am looking for a good fit for my academic and athletic experience. 

Off the lacrosse field, I have faced some difficult challenges in the service work I have done with urban youths as well as with the elderly.  With youths, I have been involved in collecting for monthly food and clothing drives as well as various holiday projects to assist people that are more disadvantaged than myself.  With the elderly, I trained my labrador retriever Molly to be a therapy dog, and take her on biweekly visits to local nursing homes.  Whether its providing goods and holiday programs to children and teens to meet their physical and emotional needs, or bringing a smile and companionship to an elderly person who doesn't receive many visitors, I have found that, like in lacrosse, I receive back much more than I give.  

I look forward to meeting all the academic and athletic challenges at the next level, while at the same time, hopefully giving back to my community in a meaningful way.