KADE GATES

Although Leesa Eggum is entering her first season as a member of the Saskatchewan Huskies women’s soccer team, she is no stranger to the soccer pitch.

The Saskatoon native has been playing soccer for years and finished up a two-year career at Lakeland College, a school part of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Association. On top of playing for the soccer team last year, she also suited up for the basketball team and futsal squad.

“It was pretty busy, I usually had two to three practices a day and when you try to mix in school and friends, it’s pretty hard,” said Eggum.

Eggum has always been a jack-of-all-trades. In high school she was a member of many teams, playing basketball, soccer, badminton, volleyball and running on the track team as well. She began playing soccer after being signed up by her parents.

“When I was a kid, my parents were deciding between basketball and soccer and I could never sit still, so they put me into soccer,” Eggum said.

A lasting memory of playing soccer is from her grade 12 year when her club team, the Eastside Vortex, won the under-18 national championship.

“My favourite memory of playing soccer was winning nationals in my senior year of high school. Lots of the girls that were on the nationals team are on this team as well, so it will be nice playing with them again. Everything seems to be clicking since we’ve got back to playing together,” said Eggum.

Eggum was the 2014 women’s soccer rookie of the year for Lakeland and also led the team in goals scored, with eight in 10 games. Early on in her first season at Lakeland, she had a defining moment.

“We had a big win against Olds College late in the game, on a goal of mine. That would be my lasting memory from playing there,” said Eggum, who  also had Lakeland’s first goal in that game, as well as set up another in a 4–3 victory.

Eggum was the 2015 female athlete of the year at Lakeland. She was a guard on the basketball team that went 22–2 and finished fourth at the Alberta College Athletic Conference Championship. In soccer, she finished third in the ACAC South Division in goal scoring with seven goals in eight games.

Eggum is in the second year of a nursing degree at the University of Saskatchewan after taking part in the University Transfer program at Lakeland College for the past two years. She is a big fan of country music, especially Luke Bryan. Outside of school and soccer, Eggum likes to escape the city.

“I like going to my lake and doing water sports there and staying active by biking or rollerblading,” said Eggum.

Eggum now looks forward to a new challenge as she joins a Huskies lineup that went 7–2–3 last season, finished second in the Prairies Division and won a Canada West bronze medal. Eggum will look to help out however she is needed, though, and isn’t getting ahead of herself.

“My goals for the upcoming season are just to be an asset to the team. I just want to help anyway I can, whether it’s starting or just coming off the bench, I would just like to be an asset,” said Eggum.

Eggum is looking to help the Huskie women improve on last season’s performance and contribute on their road to the Gladys Bean Memorial Trophy — the women’s soccer national championship trophy — set to be decided at the University of British Columbia in November 2015.