Catching Up With ...
        Father-son soccer duo Mark and Jeffrey Collings (June 17)
        Track record holder and longtime SPU leader John Glancy (June 24)
        U.S.Olympic Track Trials competitor Jessica Pixler Tebo (July 1)
        State championship gymnastics coach Kathie Cradduck Koch (July 8)

 
By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – When Jennifer Hull made her official women's soccer recruiting visit to Seattle Pacific in the late fall of 2000, it included the usual activities: Talking to coaches, touring campus, meeting Falcon players.
 
Except the players she met were from the men's team.
 
"I remember being introduced to Vadim Tolstolutsky (SPU's second-leading scorer that fall with nine goals), who was really welcoming and really nice," she said. "I remember meeting Brent Egbert, and he was nice."
 
It's not that Hull, a talented goalkeeper, wouldn't have wanted to meet some women's players.
 
Problem was, the team had just been launched in March of that year. Aside from a very small core group on campus who had been doing some training together, there just weren't any players to meet on that particular day.
 
But as Hull thought about her college possibilities, the idea of getting in on the ground floor of a new program at a school where soccer was a very high-profile sport intrigued her.

 

"I threw my name out across the country, went to some prestigious goalkeeper camps, and had found out SPU was brand-new," she said. "I didn't want to be No. 2 anywhere, I wanted to be No. 1 somewhere."
 
By the end of her visit, the Oregon native who hails from Eugene was at least thinking about getting on board.
 
"We went to Tradition," she said of the annual Christmas season event on campus, "and I thought that this was something I wanted. It was the size (of school) I wanted; it was more of a community."
 
Hull returned home for the holidays and the rest of her senior year at Sheldon High School. By early spring of 2001, she still hadn't made a final decision, although SPU was very much on her mind.
 
She and head coach Bobby Bruch then had another conversation.
 
"He wanted to get his team solidified, and he said, 'I really do want you here,'" Hull recalled. "I wanted to make sure that I was part of a program, too."
 
Not long after that, she officially became the first Falcon women's soccer recruit to sign a national letter of intent.
 
"I did look at some other schools," Hull said, adding that she had made a verbal commitment to Niagara University in New York. "But it worked out to where I just didn't feel that way about any of the other places."
 
THE ONE AND ONLY
As the pages of the 2001 calendar flipped into August, Hull and her 17 new teammates headed to SPU's Camp Casey on Whidbey Island.
 
"Just being away from home for the first time – it was really different," she said. "But I knew I wanted to be a part of
this."
 
Hull was one of 11 freshmen on the squad. As for her desire to be at a place where she could be the No. 1 goalkeeper … well, that wasn't a problem.
 
Hull was the team's only keeper.
 
But that meant lots of action – in fact, all of the 1,721 minutes that fall as Seattle Pacific went 8-10-1 (7-5-0 for fourth place in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, after being picked for fifth),
 
In those 19 games, Hull made 105 saves – a total that still stands as the school record. (Ranking No. 2 is current keeper Molly Stinson, who had 77 saves in 1,878 minutes last year as a sophomore.) Hull had two shutouts and a 1.52 goals-against average.
 
"It was kind of a little crazy – it was a busy year," Hull said.
 
As expected, the Falcons had a bumpy first-year flight that included a four-game losing streak. But they also got results in their first two games (a 1-1 tie at Point Loma Nazarene and a 3-0 victory at Vanguard) and forged three winning streaks, with a three-gamer at midseason that included back-to-back victories against Western Washington.)
 
"I have such fond memories of the first team and inaugural season," said Sharon (Harrold) Paul, the assistant coach in 2001. "We had a small squad, a young squad, but a very hard-working, determined squad. I believe their commitment and never-give-up attitude established a foundation for all the SPU women's soccer teams that followed."
 
Added Hull, "We were all looking at the fact that we were brand-new. Coming from a really competitive background, I was used to having a lot more success. But it was like, 'This is who we are; this is where we're going to build from'"
   
 A BIT OF A DETOUR
But as that building gained momentum with the addition of talented players such as Shannon Lovejoy, who would become a three-time All-American, and Megan Lienhard, an eventual two-time All-GNAC selection, Hull's career hit an offseason speed bump when she had to have surgery for a ruptured disc in her back.
 
She still played in all 19 games as a sophomore in 2002, but wound up sharing time (and starts) with freshman Erin Pierce as Seattle Pacific went 13-4-0 and won the GNAC crown with a 9-3-0 record.
 
Fueled by her desire to regain her starting spot, Hull joined a Seattle women's side that had Falcon teammates Lovejoy and Lienhard, and also featured several University of Washington players, including world-caliber goalkeeper Hope Solo.
 
"That made me a better player. I was learning to play a step above when I came back for my junior season," Hull said.
 
By that fall of 2003, Chuck Sekyra had been named SPU's head coach, and Hull had earned her way back to No. 1. Matter of fact, she started all 21 games that year, posting 12 shutouts and allowing just six goals as the Falcons went 17-2-2 overall, won the GNAC title at 11-0-1, and played in the first of what has become a streak of 13 straight NCAA tournaments.
 
"It was an awesome year," Hull said. "I had great experiences. I just felt really, really confident, and I felt great being in goal. I knew what I was doing, and I could read the play a lot quicker."
 
Hull then started all 22 games as a senior in 2004, posting 10 more shutouts. Her totals through her final two seasons: 43 starts, 22 shutouts, just 14 goals allowed (an 0.33 goals-against average), a 36-3-4 overall record (22-0-2 in the GNAC), back-to-back conference crowns, and two straight NCAAs.
 
"I loved my junior and senior years," said Hull, a third-team All-American as a junior and a second-teamer as a senior. "I felt we had a great team, and we played some amazing games."
 
UNEXPECTED CAREER OFF THE FIELD
But there was no denying one thing: After a 2-0 loss to crosstown rival Seattle University in the second round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament, Hull's college career between the posts was done.
 
"After my last game, it was really hard," she said. "I had kind of an identity of being a goalkeeper. Now, I wasn't a goalkeeper anymore."

 

But she was still a solid student, double-majoring in Latin American studies / international relations, and political science. Hull earned a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, and her thinking was that she would go for a government job, perhaps with the FBI or Homeland Security. She even considered joining the National Guard.
 
The two things she hadn't planned on becoming were a teacher or a coach. But upon deciding to use that postgrad award at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., that was the direction she took.

Now, the 33-year-old Hull is both at Beaverton High, a Class 6A (large) school just outside of Portland. She teaches world languages, having just recently returned from a cultural trip to Spain with some of her students, and coaches the JV-2 (primarily freshman) girls team.
 
"She shows up every day with so much energy, and the kids go off of that so much," Beaverton head coach Kassandra McCluskie said. "Because she is also a teacher here, she gets to know the kids on a personal level. She enjoys it and recognizes how rewarding it is, too."
 
Hull, who also coaches with the Timbers-Thorns Regional Training Center program in Portland, added, "Right now, I like being used where I'm most influential. We only had two losses last year, and they're all excited and love to play. It's fun to coach kids who want to compete and love the game."
 
Although she doesn't play anymore, those competitive twangs haven't completely disappeared.
 
And her SPU memories are still strong. So is a life lesson she learned in forging them.
 
"There's a lot of times when I miss the feeling of competing," she said. "I miss the feeling that I was able to do my job and worked hard at it, and have a team that was able to compete and do some fun things
 
"That's why you value the time that you have."