By: Chandler Beard

 
First-Year midfielder and forward Darby Robinson played two years of varsity soccer at West Springfield High School in, Springfield, Virginia. In her senior year she was named the captain of her team.  Her junior year, though, wasn’t exactly what you would expect out of someone to be named the team captain just the following year.
In the beginning of her junior year she didn’t see much time on the field.  This was a big change for her, having come from a club team where she started all the time. Robinson asked her coach what she could do to improve her game and her coach told her she mainly needed to work on her confidence. After tons of hard work, she wound up getting a lot more minutes on the field by the end of the season and as stated earlier was named captain just a year later.
When asked how it felt to see all her hard work pay off, Robinson responded, “I had a huge sense of accomplishment.”
The hard work didn’t stop paying off after high school.  Robinson has already proved herself to be a crucial player for the Chatham Women’s soccer team. After not playing at all in the first game of the season, she came into the second game as a sub against Muskingum University and recorded 4 shots. She then went on to score her first collegiate goal in their next game against the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.
This play helped her earn a starting position against Hilbert College in just the second week of her collegiate career. She scored her second collegiate goal in this game.
Robinson’s plays against Pitt Greensburg and Hilbert allowed her to garner the honors of being named PAC Rookie of the Week for the week of September 4th-September 10th.
When Robinson was asked how it felt to be named the PAC Rookie of the Week in just her second week of playing college soccer, she answered, “At first I was kind of like, oh that’s pretty cool and then I realized it was a pretty big deal when my club gave me a shout out on twitter and my coach congratulated me and my high school coach texted me.”
Since being named rookie of the week she has stayed hot, as against Penn State Altoona she put up yet another goal to tally her running total to three.
On the academic side of things, balancing academics and athletics can be very challenging for a lot of athletes. This is one thing that Robinson said is pretty tough. Majoring in exercise science and taking 18 credits this semester, she has a lot of work that night in and night out keeps her up until midnight.
Robinson said, “It’s definitely a lot of work. For me at least, I know there are a lot of girls on the team who will do their homework on the bus, but for me I get motion sickness so I can’t do it on the bus, so I have to stay up late doing homework.”
The Cougars next game is on Sunday, September 24th in a home non-conference matchup against Salem College at Ellis Field.