Archer seniors Yasmeen Namazie ’15 and Hillary O’Connor ’15 signed letters of intent to play college athletics on Monday, Feb. 2.

Both seniors will be playing soccer but will be attending different colleges. Namazie will be attending Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and O’Connor will be attending Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

MaxPreps held a press conference for the two soccer players on Monday, and they spoke about what being able to play soccer at their respective colleges means to them.

“I realized that [Swarthmore] is a very inclusive and intimate community. Doing [soccer] and academics simultaneously would just be perfect for me,” Namazie said.

O’Connor also feels lucky to have the opportunity to continue playing soccer in college.

“It’s kind of like a really good reflection of how much work I’ve put into this over the past 10 years.  And there’ve been a lot of people who’ve said ‘no’ and a lot of things that have happened that discouraged me from continuing on but the fact that I have this opportunity to keep my soccer career going is the most amazing thing I could ask for,” she said.

Their varsity soccer coach, Kim Smith, said how proud she was of the two athletes: “It’s been great to watch them develop as players and also as people — and also to come into their own and realize their strengths and realize that they can continue to pursue this passion of theirs and they’re able to continue playing soccer.”

MaxPreps created a video about this event, which can be viewed to the right.