Julie Sheridan Takes to the Soccer Field at Felician

Julie Sheridan has been savoring her last days of high school sports.

The recent high school graduate is heading to Felician College in Lodi/Rutherford to start her college career this fall.  She has been playing some softball for the Hasbrouck Heights UGALS team, which most likely are her last games of interscholastic softball as Sheridan is heading to Felician to play soccer.

The graduated Lady Aviator was an All North Jersey Interscholastic Conference first team player in both softball and soccer during her senior year.

She was hoping to play both softball and soccer at Felician but those plans went up in smoke. "I wanted to play both sports, but the Felician softball coach did not want me to play soccer," added Sheridan.

Sheridan already has ties with the Felician soccer program with fellow Hasbrouck Heights alum, JoJo Pisani, a forward, who will be a senior this fall on the Golden Falcons. "I didn't know that she was on the team until I spent some time with them," said Sheridan.

Both Sheridan and Pisani were on the Hasbrouck Heights team that won the state sectional championship in 2008 and made it to the Group 2 state title game.

Sheridan added that picking soccer over softball came about since Heights is known more for soccer where she registered 47 shutouts for the Lady Aviators.

"A lot more people saw me in soccer for Heights than in softball," said Sheridan.

The Hasbrouck Heights grad chose not play basketball during the winter so that she could play soccer on a traveling team, TSF Academy, that went all across the country.

Along with Felician she looked at a few other schools like Bryant University in Massachusetts, Elmira College in upstate New York, Adelphi University and Montclair State University.

Sheridan said that her decision came down to Felician and Montclair State. "I thought Montclair State was too big and I liked that Felician was smaller," added Sheridan.

She also liked that her parents could come and see her play her home games at the Lyndhurst Recreation Center in Lyndhurst.

The Hasbrouck Heights alum said that she especially appreciated that the Felician women's soccer coach Thomas Notte had a good attitude about academics and athletics.

"I like that the coach was very strong about academics over athletics," said Sheridan. "He said that if I had to take an important test that I can make up the practice at another time."

And Notte likes that Sheridan will be the future of the Golden Eagles program. "Julia is a good goalkeeper who has played at a high level," Notte said. "She will be a great addition to our squad."

Sheridan knows that for this fall she will take a backseat to a returning keeper. She will be behind senior Allie Couzo who was named to the All-Central Atlantic College Conference Women's Soccer team.

But she knows that the spring soccer league will be when she starts gaining her collegiate experience.