Austin Derksen's soccer career took him from Prince George to Coquitlam. His next stop will be Durango, Colorado, where he'll play next school year for the Fort Lewis College Skyhawks.
The 17-year-old Derksen has signed a letter of intent with the Skyhawks, who compete in Division 2 of the NCAA. He has a combined athletic/academic scholarship that carries a value of about $10,000 for his first season and could climb higher after that.
"It's kind of cool," said Derksen, a former D.P. Todd student who moved to the Lower Mainland at the end of Grade 10 so he could push himself to higher levels in the game. "It didn't really sink in until I saw my name on the [Skyhawks] website. I was like, 'Wow, I'm actually doing this -- I'm going, and I'm doing this.' It is a little bit of closure in the sense that I've spent a lot of time in the past three years trying to do this. So now that it has happened and I know it has happened, it definitely is satisfying."
Derksen has played every position from fullback to forward. The Skyhawks will use him up front as an offensive weapon, not a bad idea considering his finishing ability around the net. At the triple-A high school provincial championship tournament earlier this month, Derksen scored six goals in five games and led the Dr. Charles Best Blue Devils to their second straight title.
On Saturday, see The Citizen and pgcitizen.ca for more.
