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BIOGRAPHY

Frank Juzenas

BRAMPTON — Her first season of NCAA soccer could not have gone much better for Jalana Ellis.

The St. Thomas Aquinas graduate led her team in most offensive categories in her freshman season with the Jackson State (Mississippi) Lady Tigers as they won the South Western Athletic Conference title. She was also named to the all-SWAC second team and earned a spot on the SWAC tournament team

Ellis led her team in goals with seven, points with 16, shots with 36, shots on goals with 19 and game-winning goals with three. She finished tied for sixth in the conference in goals and tied for second in game-winning goals.

She helped the team compile a 10-10-2 record. That was a big turnover for a team which started the year going 0-7-1, only scoring once in its first seven games. Ellis was recently back at her Brampton home and besides reflecting on the past season she feels good about the future of the program as Jackson State will lose just one senior player from this past season’s squad.

“We played teams that had been playing together for four years,” said Ellis. Not only did the Tigers have to develop team chemistry the players needed to gain confidence. The Tigers had 11 freshmen on the roster, who had to adjust to play at the NCAA level.

Elllis said through her soccer career she has always been able to score goals but she wasn’t sure she would be able to do so well as a freshman. She started playing soccer when she was four years old in Brampton, playing for the Brams United Girls Soccer Club before she joined the Erin Mills Soccer Club, at age 14.

In her Grade 9 year in high school Ellis was on a powerful St. Thomas Aquinas Cardinals team which won the Region of Peel Secondary School Athletic Association (ROPSSAA) crown and then became the first girls’ team from Brampton to take the Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association (OFSAA) title.

When the time came to choose post-secondary education she was attracted to Jackson State, even though it was a long way from her Brampton home.

“I had other offers but Jackson State seemed like the place that would be the most fun,” she said.

She had success at the school despite enduring a difficult training camp. While there can be hot days during our summers she said that was nothing quite like the heat during the August training camp in Mississippi.

A season highlight for Ellis came during the conference tournament in Houston where she scored twice in Jackson State’s 4-0 victory over Texas Southern. She added an assist in the 1-0 win over Southern in the semifinal. The Tigers then defeated Alabama State 1-0 in the final. That put Jackson State into the NCAA regional tournament but the season ended with a 9-0 loss to Ole Miss.

http://m.bramptonguardian.com/sports-story/4357674-ellis-shines-on-soccer-field-for-jackson-state-lady-tigers/

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