By Jill Saftel, News Staff
When women’s soccer head coach Tracey Leone first saw senior Veronica Napoli play it was from the opposing team’s side when she was coaching for Harvard in 2009, and she viewed the speedy forward as the ultimate dangerous player.
“We hated playing against her because she’s such a threat,” Leone said. “She can break a game open at any second.”
But now that Leone coaches Napoli, who was voted Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) pre-season Player of the Year, it’s her speed and drive as a senior co-captain that are such an asset to Leone’s squad.
“She’s an impact player, so people look to her to help win games,” Leone said. “She takes a lot of personal responsibility in this team’s success.”
Long before she was preparing to lead her team in her final season as a Husky, Napoli kicked off her career at Northeastern with early success. During her freshman season in 2008, she started in all 24 games and led the team in scoring, ranking second all time for points in a single season.
Among the accolades Napoli collected that year were CAA Rookie of the Year, CAA Player of the Week and All-CAA third team. It was also in her first season that Napoli saw her only CAA championship with Northeastern.
“Winning the CAA was definitely the highlight of my career,” Napoli said. “We all gave up so much, between missing schoolwork and being so fatigued from traveling. But we were the underdogs and we made it happen.”
She said she recalls Northeastern’s winning overtime goal in the conference championship game as a moment she’ll never forget.
Napoli positioned herself as a top scorer early in her career, tallying a hat trick against Drexel and scoring game-winning goals against Bryant, Drexel and Hofstra all in her freshman season.
Despite the early success, Napoli said it was her freshman year that presented the most challenges.
“I had played soccer all my life, but it was hard adjusting to the new [college] lifestyle,” Napoli said. “It was a whole different level [of play].”
A knee surgery that same year also presented difficulties for Napoli, and caused her to have to readjust her whole game for the next season.
In that sophomore season, Napoli scored five goals and three assists, including two game-winning goals, one in a double overtime victory over William & Mary.
Last season, which was Leone’s first year coaching the team, Napoli again started in every game, tallying nine goals and three assists to lead the team with 21 points, moving her to second all-time in career goals for Northeastern.
“Her speed is definitely her greatest asset,” Leone said. “She’s worked really hard on her fitness and she can really last an entire game at her top speed. She has a great ability to get behind defenses, and that’s something I’ve seen just constantly improving.”
As for Napoli, she’s just excited to start her senior season, she said.
“We’re so looking forward to winning games,” Napoli said. “We’re in such a better mood than we were last year. I’m very confident in our team this year.”
For Napoli and the rest of the senior players, Leone said she’d love to see them end with a bang.
“They’ve given their heart and soul, blood and sweat to this program,” she said. “I want them to end with as much team accomplishment as when they began, and that’s a championship.”
