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Hannah Bruce didn’t think she’d make it through her first semester at Utah Valley University.

The star soccer player from Cole Harbour was an apprehensive freshman at a school over 3,000 miles from home, training twice a day for the NCAA Division 1 team.

Luckily, she prevailed. This week, Bruce will begin her senior season as a co-captain with the Wolverines.

“Coming into my freshman year, through the first couple weeks, I thought there was no way I was making it for four years,” Bruce recalled in an interview earlier this week.

“It was hard coming in as a freshman from Canada. It was a huge transition. We were training every day, twice a day. The physical demand was something I wasn’t used to. I needed to get in more shape because the speed of the game was faster and the physicality was intense. But I was able to make the transition. It’s a shock for a lot of freshmen.

“But here I am as a senior and it’s just crazy to think that it’s almost done.”

Her college career may be winding down but a professional career could be ramping up.

The 21-year-old defender will put her name in for the National Women’s Soccer League draft in January. The NWSL is the highest level of women’s pro soccer in the United States.

With only nine teams and a four-round draft, Bruce isn’t optimistic she’ll hear her name called. But that’s OK. She has alternate plans for her pro career.

“I would like to sign a contract and go overseas and play there,” said Bruce, an Auburn Drive high school and Halifax City SC alum. “I would like to get the experience of playing in a different country, a different culture like in Europe or Australia or Israel. It’ll be crazy but it’ll be exciting.

“Soccer in the States is one of the best. The U.S. national team just won the World Cup so it just shows the top soccer is played here. But there are only nine (pro) teams so it’s tough. There aren’t too many spots available. There will be players finishing at a Division 1 level and entering the draft and there will be players from overseas. So it’ll be hard to get signed and get a contract here in the States. We’ll see what happens.”

Bruce got a taste of the pro game this summer when she dressed for the Utah Royals FC Reserves of the Women’s Premier Soccer League, a tier 2 semi-pro circuit that is the largest women’s soccer league in the world with 119 clubs.

Her team — an affiliate of the NWSL’s Utah Royals — reached the 2019 WPSL final, losing to Pensacola FC. But it was the experience of playing against high-calibre talent and scrimmaging with players from the U.S. national team that Bruce said was most beneficial.

“We got to scrimmage with some from the women’s national team and with the Royals’ first-team players and we got coaching from the the first team as well,” Bruce recalled.

“It was great opportunity to kind of get into that professional atmosphere.”

Though it didn’t make for a restful off-season, Bruce is ready to take her experience playing for the Royals Reserves into her final year at Utah Valley.

The Wolverines struggled to a 5-14-2 record in 2018, including a shoddy 2-10-1 mark outside of the Western Athletic Conference.

One of the lone bright lights during a dreary season was Bruce, who started all 21 matches for the Wolverines and helped anchor the Utah Valley back-line to four shutouts during WAC play. She led the team in minutes with 1,852 and earned second-team All-WAC honours.

“Last year wasn’t good; we lost a lot of games,” Bruce said. “But the team looks different this year. We have a lot of talent and players who can come in and make an impact that we didn’t have last year.

“As co-captain, I’ll definitely have more responsibilities this season. People are looking up to us. When things go well, or don’t go well, they will turn to us as upperclassmen and captains.”

Bruce has not only excelled on the pitch, but in and out of the classroom as well.

The psychology major is a three-time Academic All-WAC honouree who has compiled a perfect cumulative grade point average of 4.00.

Last April, she was one of two student-athletes from the conference to attend the 2019 NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum in Orlando, Fla. She has been a member of Utah Valley’s student-athlete advisory committee and serves on the black student union.

“She is a true example of a student-athlete leader,” Utah Valley head coach Chris Lemay said in an interview with Salt Lake City’s Deseret News.

The Wolverines open their 2019 campaign with a pair of road games against Big Ten Conference powerhouses Michigan State on Thursday and the University of Michigan on Sunday.

Utah Valley will have played 11 non-conference matches to start the season before its first conference game Oct. 6 at California State University, Bakersfield.

“This weekend is huge for us,” Bruce said. “It will determine how our season will look like. Michigan and Michigan State are big teams and these are big games. It’s exciting to see how we’ll do but I think we’ll be good. It’s a big test for sure.”