When Kacey Lawrence (Monroe, Conn.) began her senior season at the University of Michigan a year ago, she said she thought she was entering the final stretch of a soccer career that included earning All-American recognition at Masuk High School (Conn.) and playing four years as a rotation player at the Big Ten power.
When the 2023 season ended with a 1-0 loss to Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Lawrence said she immediately determined she wasn’t ready to walk away from the pitch for a final time just yet.
"As an athlete, you have ups and downs in a sport and there is that little bit of doubt of how much you really want to do another year of it," she told New England Soccer Journal. "There is a toll that it takes on the body and there is the mental aspect of it.
"But when I got to that final game, I decided that this is not it for me. There is no way I am quitting the sport and stopping now."
