Bella Geremia will be kickin' it in Kamloops next fall.
The 17-year-old soccer player from Springbank has signed her letter of intent to play for the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Wolfpack in the Canada West conference of U SPORTS – the highest level of post-secondary soccer in Canada – for the 2022 season.
Geremia, a Grade 12 student-athlete at the Edge School for Athletes and a centre back for her Calgary Blizzard Tier 1 team, said she is excited – albeit nervous – to move west to attend university and continue her competitive soccer career.
“It’s a whole different game and environment,” she said. “Living away from home will be different, but I’m excited for the new adventure I’m going to take on.”
According to Geremia, the opportunity to sign for the Wolfpack emerged after she attended a collegiate ID camp in Victoria last summer. She said that was where she met TRU's head coach, Mark Pennington, and liked what he had to say about the Kamloops-based program.
“We just kind of hit it off right away. He’s a great guy and his personality and mine clicked,” Geremia said.
Raised in Springbank, Geremia joined her first soccer team at the young age of three – though she said she had little interest in the sport at first. She said she and her best friend never actually played in the games, instead choosing to sit on the sidelines while their fathers coached.
After a five-year break from the sport, Geremia said she resumed her soccer career at the age of eight, and hasn't looked back. These days, she devotes most of her days to the sport, suiting up for both her Blizzard club team and training daily at the Edge School, a Springbank-based private school for competitive student-athletes.
Playing mostly as a centre back, Geremia said her strongest attributes are her physical strength and her leadership skills, as well as her ability to read the game and anticipate what her opponents are going to do next.
Pennington, who has coached the Wolfpack since February 2019, said he was impressed by Geremia's defensive skills, as well as her competitive mindset, when he first saw her play at the Victoria ID camp last summer.
“I could see instantly her intensity and the way she approaches every training session,” he said. “Her work rate and desire stood out pretty quickly when we stepped on the field.”
The head coach added that, with one of his centre backs graduating from the program this year, there is a hole in the Wolfpack defence that he is looking to fill. While it is not gauranteed for first-year players to receive significant playing time, Pennington added Geremia has a strong opportunity to fight for a place in the starting 11.
And if not as a centre back, there are other positions she could play in as well, according to Pennington.
“I think she has some versatility about her and could get minutes as a defensive midfielder or potentially as a full back,” he said.
Regardless of having signed her letter of intent, Geremia said she knows the hard work truly starts now. With one more term left at the Edge School, she said she plans to keep her head down and continue working on her game so she is ready when she moves to Kamloops next summer.
“Mark did say I was most likely I am going to play in my first year, but I’m not going to hold him to that,” she said. “I’m going to train and keep my head down. I’ll try to get as many minutes as I can in my first year – that’s the goal in your first year.”
