At 6:55 p.m. Wednesday (which meant there were only five minutes left in practice), a ball rolled about eight feet in front of the goal area.

Instead of simply letting one of her teammates tap it into the net, goalkeeper Alexa Rooney charged the ball at full speed and dove head first. She slid on the grass and dirt, scraping her chin in the process, but she cradled the ball into her torso for the save.

Her coach, Matt Blackford, said, non-chalantly, “Good, Lex.”

There was no need for him to get too excited about the effort, since he sees it every day in practice, and even more during a game.

“Lex plays hard all the time,” he said. “She is a real tough kid who is the heart of our defense. I’ve heard people say that she is good because she has a good defense in front of her. Well, no, she’s good because she’s good. She would be good no matter who was playing in front of her. She deserves a lot of credit for the success this team has had over the past few years.”

Rooney and her twin sister, Brittan (one of the leading scorers on the team) started playing soccer when they were six years old.
Alexa switched from the field to goalkeeper when she was in eighth grade.

“I love it. I love the rush of making a save, and I love the physicality. I like to get involved in the game.”

She also likes to direct the defense in front of her. Blackford said that is one of Rooney’s most vital assets.

“She’s the organizer. She lets everybody know where they are supposed to be, and she shouts out instructions,” he said. “And, everybody feeds off her. She does a great job.”

Rooney, one of six Lady Irish players who will play college soccer next year, will attend Jacksonville University in the fall.

She said she hopes to beat out two other freshmen who will compete for the goalkeeper spot, but she does not want to think about that too much, yet.

“I don’t want this season to end,” she said. “We were all talking about the postseason coming up, and it was kind of sad. We’re all so close on this team. We don’t want it to end.”

Postseason is coming up, and the Lady Irish are the No. 1 seed in the Peoria Notre Dame Sectional. Rooney said that means it is time to focus on the big prize.

“I’d love to go out as a state champion,” she said. “That’s our goal. We all feel like we have a good chance. We’re going to play as hard as we can. I know that.”