Sophia Filice '22 Recruiting Profile

As a student, I take my education very seriously. I graduated with honours from St Ann Ancaster elementary school, and finished my Grade 9, 10 and 11 years at Bishop Tonnos Catholic Secondary School (Ancaster) with honours (92%, 94% and 97% average, respectively). Based on my Grade 9 performance, I was selected to complete the enriched math curriculum for grades 10, 11 and 12. For my Grade 11 year, I was selected to be a member of the Bishop Tonnos DECA Chapter, and competed at the DECA provincials in February 2021.  Currently for Grade 12, we are on a quadmester system and recently finished Kinesiology (96%), Nutrition and Health (98%) and just started enriched Calculus and Physics. For my post-secondary education, I am interested in schools that provide Biomedical Engineering type programs.

Most importantly for my post secondary school ventures including athletics, I believe I can be an asset to your team by bringing leadership, hard work, dedication and versatile soccer skills. I am truly excited to continue my academic and athletic future and thank you for taking the time to review my profile. I look forward to hearing from you.

I am a multi-sport athlete as I participate in soccer and hockey at rep levels along with flag/touch football and field hockey at club and high school levels. For my Grade 9 freshman year, I played Junior Girls Soccer (vice champions Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic league), girls varsity hockey (HWCL champions and Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference champions, qualified for OFSAA), girls varsity field hockey and girls varsity touch football. In Grade 10, I played girls varsity hockey (HWCL championship semi-finalists) and girls varsity field hockey until the 2020 soccer and touch football seasons were cancelled due to COVID-19. For my Grade 11 year, there were no school sports organized due to COVID-19. For my Grade 12 year, I played girls varsity field hockey and was selected captain of the team.  I intend to play girls varsity hockey in the winter and soccer in the spring if available due to COVID-19.  In grade school, I played a number of sports including coed indoor/outdoor soccer winning a number of tournaments in Grade 7&8.   

I am a core leader on my teams, having been selected for leadership roles as assistant captain or captain on my soccer and hockey teams for the last 4 years and was selected captain for my high school varsity field hockey team. I started playing soccer in Ancaster at age three and have fallen in love with the game. Over many seasons, I have played every position on the field including Goalkeeper. In 2019, I began playing defensive positions, starting at Right Back and progressed to Centre Back. My U15 team went on a 12-game winning streak after I moved to Centre Back. For the 2018-19 U15 indoor season, my team and I trained diligently over the winter and I was selected as goal keeper/sweeper for the 2019 Gatorade 5v5 tournament in Toronto. For the U15 outdoor season, we trained twice a week with an additional 1-2 games per week. I was called up to play games for the Hamilton United U15 Regional team but had same-day game conflicts while training for the 2019 USA Cup. Playing in the July 2019 USA Cup was the opportunity of a lifetime - to play the game I love and represent my country against so many international teams at a spectacular venue. 

For our 2019-2020 U16 season, my team competed in an indoor league as part of our winter training. Our team only lost one game during the indoor season when I was playing center back. Our team was again selected for the 2020 Gatorade 5v5 tournament in Oakville where I was scheduled to play defence. Unfortunately, the tournament was cancelled along with all the other indoor/outdoor U16 tournaments we had planned in Ontario and the US due to COVID-19. During COVID-19 winter 2020 shutdown our team did weekly video training sessions with McMaster High Performance Trainers along with my own daily strength and conditioning workouts. Our team then trained outdoors 2-times per week starting in the spring of 2020 in social distanced practices and began participating in modified 7v7 league in August 2020.  For the fall 2020 U17 indoor season, we were limited to socially distanced practicing, which was shut down in December 2020, restarted in February 2021 and then shut down again in March 2021. Through the 2021 shutdown, our team continued to virtually train weekly with a McMaster High Performance Trainer and I train daily on my own using our Team Builder app. Additionally in the Fall 2020 I was called to play a series of 3 games with the Guelph OWSL Senior Women's Provincial Team, but this too was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19.

The Spring/Summer 2021 U17 outdoor modified season (due to COVID-19) included participation in the Ontario Cup championship, where we made it to the Round of 16. I played predominantly as a midfielder, which utilizes my play-making, attacking approach and defending skills. Our U17 team trained twice per week on the field with the McMaster High Performance Training centre and friendly exhibition games were arranged by our coach with our Regional teams in the southern Ontario area. I also played as a call up to the Guelph U17 Regional Team.

For the Fall/Winter 2021-2022 U18 indoor season, our team is participating in the Provincial Indoor Soccer League (PISL).  For Spring 2022, our team will be playing U21 Regional in the Ontario Women's Soccer League (OWSL).