AIM HIGH, BIG BLUE
Mechanicville’s Rubino looks ahead to college soccer at Fredonia, with sights set on the Air Force
MECHANICVILLE, N.Y. » The fall of 2020 was supposed to be the season that Dani Rubino got in the goal full-time for the Red Raiders. As the Mechanicville senior awaits a potential spring soccer season, she also has started to prepare for collegiate soccer at SUNY Fredonia.
“In the beginning of the college process I wanted to be somewhere warm because I love the beach, but when I went to Fredonia, it just really felt like I fit in,” Rubino said.
While the beaches of Lake Erie aren’t quite the same as those in the Carolinas, another mission was accomplished playing college soccer.
“Playing college soccer is something that I knew that I wanted to do,” she explained, continuing about her interactions with the team and Head Coach Chris Case. “I went to Fredonia last March and I knew that it was the one. I stayed overnight and the team was amazing. The coach is very nice, very helpful and he wasn’t pushy. He was helpful and he made it clear that he was interested in me playing for him, but he let me make my own decision which I appreciated.”
Rubino has laid out a clear path for her future. After graduating from Mechanicville, she plans on majoring in criminal justice at Fredonia while playing soccer. Then she wants to follow in her aunt’s footsteps and join the Air Force.
“My aunt and I have always been very close, she’s like a second mom to me and she’s in the military, in the Air Force. Her and I are basically the same person, we can’t just be sitting at a desk,” Rubino said. “I was talking to her about what I should do and she
thought the military would be perfect for me. I always knew that I wanted to go to college, so I thought criminal justice would fit right in with that and I’m hoping to be a military police officer in the Air Force.”
As a member of the Alleycats club team, Rubino credits a lot of her development as a soccer player to that program and - in a way - will be taking some of it with her to Fredonia.
“Alleycats really got me mentally and physically in the shape I’m in now and prepared to play soccer in college. My friend from Alleycats is also going to Fredonia and we’re probably going to room together,” she said of Schalmont’s Jules Monlea. Another familiar face will be Ballston Spa’s Izzy Audette, a current sophomore on Fredonia’s women’s soccer roster.
Rubino was first called up to Mechanicville’s varsity roster as a freshman and her first full season was as a sophomore. Most of her time has been spent as a defender. She is still hoping to have a school season as her team’s starting goalkeeper.
“I hope we have a season. I’ve been playing with these girls for a really long time, so it’d be nice to have one last opportunity to have a season with them,” Rubino said. “I really wanted to use the school ball season this year to show what I got.”
Something that players look forward to every season are the rivalry games between Mechanicville and Stillwater. For Rubino, those games were ever more special, as she competed against friend and another Alleycats teammate, Keelyn Peacock. Unfortunately that won’t be possible this year. Peacock, a women’s soccer commit at Arkansas State, graduated early from Stillwater and started college a semester early.
“Keelyn and I just clicked when we started playing together, we always traveled together and we became great friends,” Rubino said. “I always have to mentally prepare myself when I play Keelyn’s team because I know she can shoot from literally anywhere and her shots are usually never off. I love playing against her, we’re both really competitive, but that will never break our bond.”
As her senior year starts to wind down, Rubino has some pretty reasonable hopes for a student who has had their world turned upside-down for the past year.
“I do hope we have a prom and graduation and that it’s all normal and that we can some sort of senior trip. I’d also like to be back in school with everyone because before we were all split up.”