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Church Welcomes Saunicheva as Final Piece for 2023 Roster
6/14/2023 11:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
DURHAM – Duke women's soccer head coach Robbie Church added the final piece of the 2023 roster on Wednesday as he welcomes UCLA forward Julia Saunicheva to the Blue Devil family.
Saunicheva, a 5-8 native of San Jose, Calif., is coming off seeing action in eight matches as a rookie with the Bruins and helping UCLA to the 2022 NCAA Championship.
"We are very excited to have Julia joining our women's soccer family," said Church. "We have one of her former teammates, Elle Piper, on our team so we saw Julia play a lot as a youth player. We really like the quality that she will bring to our program. She has a chance to be very dynamic and have a really nice impact on our program. Julia is very skillful, attacking minding, can combine with people, can beat people off the dribble, has quality serving/finishing ability and will be a very exciting player to watch in a Blue Devil uniform."
Prior to her time at UCLA, Saunicheva competed for two years at Leland High School and was a part of the 2021 BVAL League Champion team. She was selected BVAL Junior of the Year in 2020 and led her squad in goals (10) and assists (3). Saunicheva played with Piper on the Bay Area Surf, which was ranked as the No. 1 club team since the 2015-16 and won the 2019 and 2021 National Championship. She was selected to the TopDrawerSoccer Best XI in 2019.
Saunicheva was called into the U.S. U-20 National Team training camp in October of 2021 and has been part of the national team pools from U-15 to U-20. She assisted on the game-winning goal in a 2019 U-15/16 matchup against the Netherlands.
Saunicheva will have three years of eligibility remaining at Duke.
To stay up to date with Blue Devils women's soccer, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeWSOC".
#GoDuke
Saunicheva, a 5-8 native of San Jose, Calif., is coming off seeing action in eight matches as a rookie with the Bruins and helping UCLA to the 2022 NCAA Championship.
"We are very excited to have Julia joining our women's soccer family," said Church. "We have one of her former teammates, Elle Piper, on our team so we saw Julia play a lot as a youth player. We really like the quality that she will bring to our program. She has a chance to be very dynamic and have a really nice impact on our program. Julia is very skillful, attacking minding, can combine with people, can beat people off the dribble, has quality serving/finishing ability and will be a very exciting player to watch in a Blue Devil uniform."
Prior to her time at UCLA, Saunicheva competed for two years at Leland High School and was a part of the 2021 BVAL League Champion team. She was selected BVAL Junior of the Year in 2020 and led her squad in goals (10) and assists (3). Saunicheva played with Piper on the Bay Area Surf, which was ranked as the No. 1 club team since the 2015-16 and won the 2019 and 2021 National Championship. She was selected to the TopDrawerSoccer Best XI in 2019.
Saunicheva was called into the U.S. U-20 National Team training camp in October of 2021 and has been part of the national team pools from U-15 to U-20. She assisted on the game-winning goal in a 2019 U-15/16 matchup against the Netherlands.
Saunicheva will have three years of eligibility remaining at Duke.
To stay up to date with Blue Devils women's soccer, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeWSOC".
#GoDuke
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