Dalton State announces first 12 women's soccer recruits

photo Students Tyler Dockery and Dania Gaines walk to class at Dalton State College in this file photo.

They forever will be the first dozen.

Dalton State College has announced its inaugural 12 recruits for a women's soccer team that won't play officially until the 2016 fall semester. That amounts to a full starting side plus one reserve, and they will all be redshirts this fall as they work under coaches Kerem Daser and Rene Enang.

Most are from area schools, with four from Dalton High, three from Northwest Whitfield, one from Coahulla Creek and one from Ringgold. They have competed with or against each other for years in club soccer as well as school competition.

"They are all great friends and great student-athletes," Daser said in a school release. "We coached all of them at our free weekly soccer training that we did during the past nine months. Rene and I will work hard with this group and get them ready for our 2016 season."

Some already were enrolled at Dalton State, including junior biology major Alejandra Salaises from Dalton High and sisters Selena and Juliana Gomez from Northwest. Salaises and Selena Gomez are defenders, as are Northwest grads Venessa Vega and Andrea Garcia. Juliana Gomez is a forward.

Alondra Salaises, Alejandra's younger sister, is a midfielder, and another Dalton High graduate joining the Roadrunners, Rocio Alondra Carrizales, is a sweeper and midfielder.

All-area forward Regina Pachecho is the Coahulla Creek representative, and Ringgold's is center midfielder Alyssa Bilbrey.

Another forward recruit is Adilene Campos Castillo from Cedartown, and Karen Vazquez-Alva is a left midfielder from Norcross High. Diana Cindy Hitesan comes in as a junior nursing student after two years playing for Andrew College in Cuthbert, Ga. She's from Calvary Christian High in Columbus.

"Coach K (also the men's coach) has done a great job cultivating relationships in the community, and it definitely shows in his commitment to local kids in his signing classes," Dalton State athletic director Derek Waugh said in the release. "He had a herculean task in starting soccer so quickly and recruiting so many kids.

"I think the fruits of his labor will definitely show up as time moves on and he is able to compete against uber-competitive conference opponents with juniors and seniors."

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