Senior Nicolas Lancaster, goalie for the Springbrook High School soccer team and Editor-at-large of the Blueprint, signed to play collegiate soccer at Seton Hill University last Friday. His signing day drew quite a crowd to the college and career center where many members of the soccer team, his friends, and family attended.

After receiving offers from multiple schools including Hood College and Springfield University, Lancaster eventually chose to sign with Seton Hill. Despite his evident success in the sport, Nick didn’t always play soccer. After trying out various sports as a child, he says his father recommended that he stuck with soccer.

“I was playing football and basketball until like maybe 7 or 8 years old, and then my dad said, ‘Forget all that, do you want to play soccer?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Let’s try it’, and it just took off from there.”

Balancing school and soccer proved to be a challenge for Lancaster who was involved in many extracurricular activities throughout his high school career. In addition to his contributions to The Blueprint and playing varsity soccer, Lancaster is also the Editor-in-chief of the Trident- our school’s yearbook- and plays travel-club soccer with Maryland Rush Montgomery.

“It’s tough,” he said, reflecting on the challenges of keeping up with school and sports, “during the season, it’s tough to study at night because you’re coming off games around 9 o’clock. It’s hard to balance sometimes.”

He plans on majoring in communication studies and hopes to go into the field of broadcast journalism in the future. Aside from soccer, Lancaster sees himself in a career “like ESPN or something like that.”

There were many factors that went into his decision and he says that Seton Hill seemed like a great fit. Lancaster was attracted to their academic programs and felt that he fit right in with the team.

“They’re really helpful as far as getting a job after college, and as far as athletics, the coach loved my personality and also believed in me as far as my talents,” said the goalkeeper.

Lancaster says that his father was a role model of his throughout the recruitment process. “He taught me how to set goals for yourself and complete them.” As one of his former teammates for the last two years, I can personally say with confidence that he himself is a role model and someone who is looked up to on the team. The Blueprint wishes Nick good luck in his future and a successful start to his college season this fall.