Cait Mullins has enjoyed a successful four years as a member of the Marblehead varsity girl’s soccer program. Ever since she took the pitch at the high-school level, she has helped bring the varsity team to new heights with her talent, as well as her leadership. Now, Mullins will continue her successful soccer career at the collegiate level, where she will be playing at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Mullins has known that she wanted to play in college since middle school, but she chose to play at St. Anselm for the high-level competition, and the familiar faces that she will see on the team when she steps foot on campus.
“It’s a really high level of soccer, I really wanted something competitive. Division 2 brings a level of competitiveness and drive that all the people have, everyone there wants to win,” Mullins said. “A lot of my former teammates actually play there, so that was a big aspect because team chemistry is really important to me.”
Mullins said that she has been playing soccer for as long as she can remember, and says that her mother was a huge influence and inspiration for her to start playing.
“Me having such a passion for it, I owe a lot to my mom. She played soccer growing up in a time where she lived through Title IX, so I think she definitely appreciates soccer in a different way, and she instilled that onto me,” she said. “She would drive me to all my practices, always pushed me to do more and so I think I owe a lot of my love of soccer to her.”
Her mom played at Swampscott High School, to which Mullins laughed when asked about if her and her mom have a playful rivalry when it comes to the schools they played for.
Aside from playing for the high school, Mullins has also been a member of New England Football Club (NEFC), where she plays club soccer in order to elevate her game.
Doc Simpson is a former coach of Mullins at NEFC, and he said one of his favorite things about coaching Mullins was seeing the growth she had through the program, especially when it came to the tactical part of the game.
“The growth that she’s had over the last two, three years has been tremendous. From an early age we always felt like we had a good player,” Simpson said. “Cait just needed to grow tactically and make better decisions and once she found that growth tactically, a lot of people were interested in her services at the next level.”
Mullins also stated that over the last few years, she has improved immensely on the defensive side of the ball. She credits a lot of that improvement to her current coach at NEFC, Joel Bancroft, who will also be coaching Mullins at St. Anselm.
“In the past couple years, my defensive game has gotten so much better. I think I owe a lot of that to Joel. He really helped me realize that defense is anticipation not reaction,” she said. “One day it just clicked for me, and it changed my whole game.”
Mullins went on to say that she has also learned to communicate effectively with her teammates on defense, stating that her vocal leadership came along as she got older.
She is a complete two-way player, but Mullins has a knack for finding the ball on offense, and said that though St. Anselm is currently a defensive team, she can bring an offensive presence to the table.
“One of my big things is moving forward on the field. At St. A’s, right now I think it’s more a defensive team, so I think I can bring that push up that they are looking for.”
It was always clear for Mullins that she wanted to play at the collegiate level, but as she improved and got older, she realized that her love for the game is something that she can’t live without.
“It’s been such a huge part of my life ever since I was little,” she said. “It just became increasingly apparent that a big part of my college decision was the soccer aspect. I decided around my sophomore year that I didn’t want to go to a school and not play.”