If you take a look at the NCAA stats for Division I women's soccer, you'll see some schools you recognize right at the top: a pair of players from Quinnipiac and a second-generation Hartford Hawk.
In Hamden, the Bobcats are 10-1-1, undefeated in conference play and the highest ranked MAAC team in RPI ratings at 46th in the country. That’s a solid team resume but add this in: junior Rebecca Cooke leads the country in total goals at 18 and her teammate Courtney Chochol is currently second in the country with 10 assists. Cooke has scored in all, but one game this season.
Goals and assist go hand in hand, as do these teammates, who have been with each other every step of the way.
“It kind of just becomes second-nature,” said Chochol “I know where she's going to be and she knows where I'm going to put the ball.”
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They’re not just teammates, but classmates and roommates, too.
She's my best friend off the field,” said Cooke. “I feel like everyone has kind of noticed us as being a pair. When I score a goal, 9 times out of 10, she's been the person who assists me.”
They’re not the only ones leading the NCAA. University of Hartford junior Imani Jenkins leads Division I women’s soccer in game winning goals and she’s tied for third in the country in total goals.
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Jenkins is following in her dad’s footsteps. Larry Jenkins played at Hartford in the 80s. Jenkins said she initially didn’t want to go to Hartford, but the more she learned about the team culture, she was hooked.
“When I'm at practice, I just look up at the bleachers sometimes and think that I was once a recruit looking here,” said Jenkins. “To imagine myself on the field was a great thing and now that I'm actually here, it's been amazing.”
The University of Hartford is currently in a transition from Division I athletics to Division III. Imani will graduate before that transition is complete and could finish her career as a DI athlete. Despite the distractions of the transition, she said she is locked in at showing the country who Hartford really is.
It helps that her dad’s journey at school mirrors her own: UHart was transitioning from DII athletics to DI when he was at school.
“So they were going through a transition as well as ironic as it is,” said Jenkins. “So they were the underdogs sometimes but they always put up a fight.”
