Senior Anjuli Turner has committed to play Division III women’s soccer at Pitzer College, whose athletics program is combined with the neighboring Pomona College. She will participate in the highly competitive SCIAC conference based in Southern California.
“I wanted to go [to a school] where I could get a good education, but also get a good athletic side of it,” Turner said.
Turner started communicating with Pitzer at the end of sophomore year, after playing at a tournament in Southern California. She then started communicating with Division I colleges her junior year.
“I think I’ve always wanted to play Division I,” Turner said. “That’s always been a dream of mine. But when it got down to it, it just worked out really well with Pitzer.”
Pomona-Pitzer ranked fourth in the nation for Division III soccer and first in all of their conferences last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, Turner said.
“I think Pitzer will allow me to do that, to be in a space where I can work on myself as an individual rather than just the speed and the physicality and the technicality of being a soccer player,” Turner said. “But I’m also looking forward to just meeting new people and discovering what I want to do in the future.”
Turner said that she is interested in trying dance for the first time at Pitzer, meeting new people, and working on herself.
“Maybe I’ll be able to take a dance class or try other things that I wouldn’t be able to try if I went Division I, so I think I made the right choice,” she said.
Turner continues to practice soccer four days a week with her club team, the Lamorinda United 03 Girls Academy, and coaches during the weekend.
“[Practice is] still pretty normal other than we have to wear masks while we play and we haven’t been really doing as much contact drills but we practice every single week,” Turner said.
While Turner has never played on the PHS girls soccer team, she and her team also have yet to have an official game this year. She hopes to play in at least one game with her team over the summer.
“I’m really looking to work on my confidence as a soccer player, at least for college soccer, because I think I know what to do and I have all my technical abilities,” Turner said. “I am just not always confident that I’m making the right choice. Also, my speed and my physicality, I would love to get stronger and get faster and just work on my form.”