After winning the Universities of Rome Championship last season (2016/17), our women’s soccer team, the Lady Gladiators, still remain as strong of a team as ever – even with the constant shifting of players due to the increasingly growing number of students that study abroad at JCU every semester. Nevertheless, the returning veteran players build chemistry with our new players and consistently make each semester successful. Our JCU Lady Gladiators are currently 2nd place in the league standings, right behind Foro Italico.

Some of our Lady Gladiator players were also featured in an Italian newspaper (il Romanista) at the A.S. Roma game (thanks to the help of one of our veteran players, Maria Martynovych) For our international students to all get together and create a community at these types of events, we feel very proud of our JCU ladies!!

We expect to see them play phenomenally in the Spring 18′ semester, as they so often do – even though half of the team may be new, enthusiastic students! For this week’s segment of #BeingAGladiator, we interviewed two new players from our women’s team, one a study abroad and one a degree-seeker, to find out if and how their experiences differed from one another during their time on the team…

Kari Hoegh, a 20-year old study abroad from Norway, played for the Lady Gladiators this past semester for the first time.

“From the perspective of a study abroad, I thought it was a great way to feel apart of a local community and make some great new friends! The girls team was very welcoming and it was truly a highlight of my experience…”

Do you think it’s better or worse for the degree seeking players to constantly see a change in students every semester?

“Although I think that it can be annoying for the players staying, it definitely is something you should keep doing! It is a great team and experience and I think they are able to take the team not too seriously while still play and act serious!”

Diana Fantauzzi, a 20-year degree seeker at JCU from Rome, began playing on the Lady Gladiators team this past semester. When asked about her experience this semester playing she said,

“This is my second year at JCU but I only joined the team this semester. I am very happy with this experience, I met really wonderful people, everyone in the team is super nice and we have a lot of fun!”

Do you think it’s positive or negative that so many study abroad students make up the majority of the JCU varsity sports teams, do you think it hinders the chemistry in order to build a strong team?

“It’s sad that the study abroad students only get to play a few months with the team, but at the same time they enrich it. Of course it would be nice if more degree seeking joined the team, to make it more stable throughout the semesters. But I think that the fact that the team is open both to degree seekers and study abroads is great, because it fosters the integration between the different groups of students.”

Stay updated this upcoming Spring 18′ semester with future games, current standings, player profiles and much more right here on the JCU Athletics blog!

We’re looking forward to the rest of the season for our Lady Gladiators, and we know that they’ll come back in January stronger than ever 🙂

#GoGladiators #LadyGladiators #JCURome #JCUSpirit