As reported in the first issue of the Lance, junior soccer player Michelle Xiao is not your average 16 year-old student. While many have been gearing up for spring sports over the past month, Xiao has spent the last year playing and attending qualifying camps for the US Women’s Under-17 National Team. After traveling with the team to England back in August (in a tournament where she scored two goals for the squad) she returned to America to attend a camp for the team.

This camp, which took place in Florida back in September, determined who would travel to Jamaica for the World Cup qualifier. Here she endured a tough week of practices for the team.

“The trainings are really intense,” Xiao said. “You have to be mentally focused 100 percent of the time and pay attention to the details.”

While Xiao didn’t make it to the World Cup qualifier in Jamaica, she did make an appearance at the next camp in Los Angeles, where she made the team to play against China, New Zealand and Japan in Los Angeles, Feb. 1-10, 2014. In Los Angeles, she displayed why she deserved her spot on the roster.

“We played China first and I started in that game, and I had an assist and we won 4-0,” Xiao said.

Now with the national team’s schedule taking a break from rigorous camps and tournaments throughout the country and world, Xiao returns to Westside once again as a player on the varsity girls soccer team and an intriguing person in Westside’s student body.