The Dynamic Duo

Senior Stephanie Barrett remembers when she met Nadia Villarroel as if it was yesterday.

It was at Bertucci’s for the team’s first preseason meal back in the summer of 2003 and Barrett sat timidly at the table looking out at her fellow members of the Massachusetts women’s soccer team. Then, someone grabbed her attention. A petite, outgoing young lady was making her way around the table shaking everyone’s hand and introducing herself.

Barrett, a shy 17-year old freshman from Katonah, N.Y., sat twiddling her thumbs, waiting for this one-person welcome wagon to mozy on over towards her.

“She was crazy,” Barrett recalls. “She introduced herself right away and shaking all our hands and I actually thought she was already a veteran on the team.”

As it would turn out, this girl was no veteran at all. She was, in fact, fellow-freshman Nadia Villarroel.

“I didn’t know anyone coming in. I didn’t look up my freshman class; I didn’t look up the team at all. I came in really oblivious,” Barrett said. “While Nadia looked us all up and what we looked like. She introduced herself right away and was shaking all our hands. I didn’t know she was a freshman. And I didn’t even know if I would click with this girl. I thought she was crazy.”

It’s been four years since they met in that quaint Italian restaurant on East Pleasant Street, and Barrett and Villarroel have turned that little meet-and-greet into a partnership – and a friendship – that has grown as much as they have.

The two were accompanied to UMass by goalkeeper Kristin Walker (who would be redshirted her first year) and midfielder Elizabeth Weinsten. The quartet came as a breath of fresh air to UMass coach Jim Rudy as well as the entire Massachusetts women’s soccer program.

The Maroon and White had suffered a season of hard-knocks in 2002, starting with the untimely death of Stephanie Santos.

Santos had been one of UMass’ best players the season prior, her freshman year, recording a team-high seven goals and five assists for 19 total points.

She was killed tragically on June 9 of that year when the car she was riding in crashed into a utility pole in Granby, Mass.

Rudy immediately began phoning Santos’ teammates scattered throughout the country to inform them of the horrible tragedy.

“Everybody came back for the funeral and the wake. It was an emotional experience that you don’t want to have to many of,” Rudy said. “Some kids went back and they didn’t train all summer and some kids did train, but when they came back the memory was refreshed. We had a few players that never really recovered from that because she was such a great kid. That team really went down the tubes.”

The Minutewomen ended their ’02 season ended with a 6-11 record. The rare losing season did not sit well with Rudy and he began looking for new blood that would provide some sort of spark to his ailing squad –and that’s where Barrett and Villarroel came in.

“They’ve been part of a process where they came in when we were on the low end and now they’re going out and we’ve made a definite climb back to respectability. And [Villarroel, Barrett and Weinsten] have helped us achieve that.”

Rudy was first turned on to Barrett by the coach of her club team, the Yorktown Jaguars, Whitney Stark. Rudy had recruited one of Stark’s players years earlier in Heidi Kocher, who became an All-American attacking defender.

“I felt like in terms of evaluations, we speak the same language,” Rudy mentioned.

All the hype drove Rudy and his UMass recruiters to a few of Barrett’s club – where the teenage star did not disappoint.

Barrett also racked up impressive credentials at John Jay high school. She was a four-year letterwinner and helped lead the Indians to a share of the League II-A title her senior year. A three-time All-league player, she amassed a career total of 30 assists and 54 goals, a school record.

Villarroel was first discovered by Rudy’s assistant coach Rebecca Myers, now the coach of boys soccer at Northampton High School, when Villarroel was playing for the Massachusetts Stars of the MAPLE [Massachusetts Premier League] League.

“Myers did the initial evaluation and got a chance to see her play in outside competitions and liked her,” Rudy said. “We had to overcome recruiting by other schools to land her here.”

Villarroel was also a four-year letterwinner. As a member of the Belmont High School Marauders, she was a two-time Middlesex League All-Star and first-team Eastern Massachusetts All-Star. She won the Eastern Massachusetts MVP award in both 2001 and 2002 and was a first team All-State selection in 2002. Upon graduating, she became fourth on Belmont’s all-time points list with 49 goals and 58 assists for 107 total points.

The pair might be a close-knit twosome that shares inside-jokes and finishes each other’s sentences now, but if you had suggested that at the beginning of freshman year, they would have called you nuts.

“We have completely opposite personalities and at first we kind of clashed a little bit and we had completely different best friends,” Villarroel recalls. “It really wasn’t until the end of our freshman year, beginning of sophomore year when we actually became close and kind of understood each other’s personalities better actually became quite best friends.”

“It was clear that we had different personalities,” Barrett added. “But after we figured out that we could actually click because of our differences, we actually became really good friends and really tight.”

Despite any differences in personality the two may have had, that didn’t prevent them from teaming up well on the soccer field.

They combined for 6 total points their freshman year as Villarroel recorded four assists and Barrett tallied a goal, as the Minutewomen finished the season with a disheartening 4-12-1 record. Senior forward/midfielder Adair Blyler was UMass’ leading scorer with six goals and three assists for 15 points.

“I thought I was pretty much prepared for it,” Villarroel said. “I tried to just stay in shape, really get at my best level. It was kind of intimidating at first because you have all these older girls and we were used to being somebody and really high up there, like that big senior role and you have to start fresh and prove yourself again. I mean, I was up for the challenge, but it was different.”

“It was very competitive. I came in shape, so that fine,” Barrett said. “And Nadia was a real competitor of mine, actually, because we were both freshmen that were trying to compete, not only for team positions, but starting and all that. In our senior class there were a couple of tough girls that really wanted the best out of you, so they demanded it. I had to prove myself a lot and that was good. I think everyone should have their freshman year.

“We loved our senior class when we were freshmen. They were great,” she continued. “They were tough, but they loved us and clicked well with them. And then over the years, you just become closer with every class.”

Sophomore year was more merciful to the duo, now seasoned veterans in the art of collegiate soccer.

“It was a familiar feeling,” Villarroel recounts. “When you come a month early in the preseason and you know the girls and everybody knows you and everybody’s excited to see you and you don’t have to worry about making friends or what people think of you or first impressions it’s so much easier. At that time I was trying to focus on helping the new girls.”

“I guess I was a lot more confident. I had a really good spring and I ended up playing defense then,” Barrett commented. “I guess it was intimidating, especially to the newbies because I was not only just a sophomore that was playing a lot, I’m just a very vocal person and they know that. I just had a lot more confidence and my team had a lot more confidence in me so it was easier playing and directing and the defensive thing that I had to do.”

The 2005 season their junior year was a breakthrough season for the Maroon and White juggernauts, as they posted the best statistics of their college careers up to that point. Villarroel registered a goal and four assists, while Barrett tallied two goals. The two combined for a total of 10 points on the season.

“I think it was a lot easier than this year because the pressure’s not all on you. You have people to look up to and you have people who are going to take responsibilities when things aren’t going right,” Villarroel said. “It was really different. Now, it’s more like if things aren’t going right, [I] have to fix it, you have to have a leadership role.”

The duet has done its best to pick up where captains Lindsey Bellini and Amy Maffucci left off last year and their teammates haven’t had any complaints.

“They’re really good captains. They’re supportive and they keep the team together. They’re both great leaders on the field,” junior forward Britt Canfield said. “They’re really good captains. They’re supportive and they keep the team together. They’re both great leaders on the field.”

“Nadia and Steph are true-born leaders. They stepped up this year. Everything reflects off of them and they do a great job,” sophomore forward Vanessa Patry echoed. “On the field and off the field they really represent what UMass is about, so we’re really going to miss them. I’m really going to miss them, personally, a lot too.”

Over the last four years, the two have taken all newcomers under their wings and have proven to have a peanut butter and jelly-like relationship – both are great individually, but even greater put together.

“We have a great relationship,” Barrett said. “Nadia never stops. She’ll just keep going after you and after you and just set an example. We click on the field. She can always go to people one-on-one and mediate things and it just balances. I’m more intense and vocal in certain ways and she’s more behind-the-scenes.

“As a friend, she’s always there,” Barrett went on to say. “She will listen to anyone and anything on the team. She isn’t biased. She will just listen and help you out and is very supportive.”

“I have a great time with Stephanie,” Villarroel said. “On the field she’s great. She’s solid. I can always count on her. And, off the field, it’s the same thing. She’s takes more of a vocal role in the leadership type of thing and that’s really handy.

“I think we’ve done a pretty successful job in our roles. I think because we’re so different we really balance each other out,” she continued. “That was one of the advantages we had over some captains that have come here and I think our record shows that we have been successful in it.”

“They’re good. They talk to each other,” Rudy commented. “If they have issues that they agree upon they usually present them to me, you know, ‘Can we do this, can we do that? Can we make a change here?’” They’re responsible.

“They just don’t sit back and accept their captaincy as something that’s just a title,” Rudy continued. “They lead.”

Well, that leadership certainly paid off as the Minutewomen enjoyed an 11-6, 5-4 A-10 season in 2006.

Villarroel pocketed four goals and two assists for 10 total points, while Barrett recorded a goal and three assists for five points.

Since their freshman season, this dynamic duo has combined for a sum of 36 career points.

Graduation always leaves one lingering question for all departing seniors: “What’s next?”

Barrett is a marketing major and is looking to get into the marketing and licensing end of the fashion industry. Villarroel, on the other hand, is a BDIC major with a concentration in forensic science. She is thinking about attending medical school to specialize in forensic pathology, but has expressed enormous interest in traveling abroad first.

“I want to go abroad and go to Spain or some Spanish-speaking country because I’ve taken a lot of Spanish and my family’s Spanish, so I want to actually use it and apply and be able to speak it very much fluently,” Villarroel mentioned. “And if I go to Spain, I would love to play on a team there.”

It’s often said that you tell a lot about a person by the way they act on a sports field. If that’s the case, Rudy isn’t the least bit concerned about what’s in store for his captains’ futures.

“They’re very strong women with great personality. And I think that when they get done here they’re going to survive very well out there,” he said. “I don’t see them sitting back and accepting what comes their ways. They’re going to make their own way.”