Ariel Pontikes - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
For most hockey players, it has been a lifetime sport. Although I have watched hockey my whole life, I did not start playing until 8th grade on a girl’s house league team. I moved onto a girls travel team the following season and continued into my junior year, winning two back-to-back state champions. This past season, due to the lack of girl’s teams in my area, I headed off to the boys high school team, taking the hits just like everyone else, if not more.
I started the NCSA process at the beginning of my junior year with the amazing help of my coach and NCSA Recruiting Coach Director Lisa Strasman. NCSA taught me how to communicate with college coaches professionally and taught me all the right steps in the recruiting process. I have chosen to play club hockey for University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign so I can concentrate more on my education, but also am able to get away from the books and hit the ice three to four times a week. I just wanted to thank NCSA for all of the help the past two years. Without the help from them and all of the recruiting coaches, I would have never made it this far in my hockey career.
