Photo by Jake McNeill Marissa Talamantes fires off a shot from the top of the box in the Tigers’ 2-0 win over New Ulm in Marshall on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022.

When Marshall High School first established its soccer team in 2017, Marissa Talamantes was part of a small group that comprised the junior varsity squad. The team was small and primarily consisted of underclassmen and middle schoolers. There was no varsity team.

Six years later, Talamantes signed her letter of intent to play college soccer at Northwestern College in the fall. She becomes the first player in program history and the second girl in school history (Megan Vogl played with Southwest Minnesota State after playing with the Marshall boys’ team in 2014) to play soccer at the collegiate level.

As a result, her signing is more than just the next step in her athletic career. She’s showing other girls what’s possible for them.

The first season of Marshall girls’ soccer went fairly smoothly, Talamantes said, however, the promotion of the team to the varsity level in Talamantes’ eighth-grade year brought some turbulence with it. The talent gap from JV games to varsity games was a big leap over a short period of time and the Tigers finished their first varsity season winless.

“The season was rough, but after there was a lot of reflection about what we can do as a team once the season was done and over with,” Talamantes said. “It was a rocky start, but you’ve got to keep your head high and remember that it can only go up.”

Over the offseason, the Tigers did whatever they could to get more experience playing with older players. While practices certainly served a purpose, practicing exclusively within the team couldn’t assuage the team’s ailments.

The team was still made up of mostly inexperienced players so it couldn’t accurately simulate what they would experience when they played games against varsity teams made up mostly of juniors and seniors.

One of the ways Marissa and other members of the team stayed fit in the offseason was by training with the Marshall United Soccer Association. Among the association’s coaches was José Losada-Montero. 

After coaching many of the girls in the offseason, Losada-Montero became a Marshall High School assistant coach in 2021 before becoming the head coach in 2022. 

“[José’s] made a huge impact on the girls… He got to coach a lot of the older girls over the summer, so being able to coach us throughout the high school season too, he really slowed things down and really taught us how to actually play soccer,” Talamantes said. “He had us learn a style of play and he’s been very consistent in having us play that way. It’s gone really well from there since he’s been a coach.”

While the consistent style of play has simplified things for the team, Talamantes still had to make adjustments as an individual. Following her junior year, a large group of graduating seniors in the midfield left a major gap in the team’s starting 11. 

Talamantes had been a striker throughout her first five years with the team but said she was willing to make the switch because she wanted to do whatever she could to help the team. Still, the change came with a major shift in the necessary skillset.

“As a wing, you’re just getting fed the balls from the midfielders and trying to score. That’s your only goal. As midfield, you’re working with your defenders, you’re working with your strikers, you’re working with your goalie as all aspects of the field rather than as one player trying to finish it yourself,” Talamantes said. 

In practice, the change wasn’t too difficult, but making the switch in the game brought more challenges for Talamantes once she was playing against other varsity teams rather than the Marshall JV squad.

“Once I got into the first game of the season, it was really eye-opening for me because it’s like, I’ve got to move the ball faster. I’ve got to make quicker decisions because the girls are right on me and I can’t keep losing [the ball] like that,” Talamantes said.

As of now, Talamantes’ position when she starts at Northwestern College is still up in the air.

With Talamantes posted in the midfield, the Tigers continued to grow as a team. They finished the season with a record of 5-4-2, marking their first winning season in program history. Marshall has still finished every season with a higher winning percentage than the year before since the girls’ soccer team was established.

Marshall’s ability to improve year after year can largely be attributed to the players’ willingness to work hard throughout the year, Losada-Montero said. While this strong work ethic applies to most of the team, it’s particularly true of Talamantes.

“[The thing that sets Talamantes apart] is her willingness to be better. She’s one of those people that’s the first to practice, last to leave. She arrives early to practice penalty kicks, she takes care of her body with conditioning and weight lifting. She never comes up short in her work,” Losada-Montero said. 

When Losada-Montero proposed adding additional practices over the summer and early in the morning, Talamantes was among the members of the team that was fully on board, Losada-Montero said. He added that Talamantes’ willingness to work outside of the season and her mindset that she’s a soccer player all year round are what make her suited for the college level. 

Even now, Talamantes is doing speed, conditioning, and footwork training with Sondy Cayo of 1JourneyFit three or four days a week, a routine that she says she will continue up until she leaves for Northwestern in the fall.

Talamantes’ contributions on the field were important to building up the program, but the significance of her signing to play at the next level goes far beyond that.

“[Being the first to sign] means a lot just being from that original team. I’m just excited to show my teammates and any other little girls that we can do it,” Talamantes said. “It’s not easy, but we can do it. We can be like other sports. You just need to put the work in. I can’t wait to see my teammates follow.”