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In the above photo: In the back, wearing dark green shirt and black shorts. Age: 23. Hometown: Cottage Grove. Now lives in Oregon. Occupation: Animal caretaker. Current team: Der Rindfleisch Baron (indoor), German for "The Beef Baron," the name of a teammate's cat. Team's first season playing, indoor or outdoor; some members are playing soccer for the first time. How long have you been playing? Played two years of junior varsity at Monona Grove High School (maiden name Barlow). This session of indoor is her first playing since then. Favorite rec soccer moment: "Not really, yet. But we just have fun playing and hanging out. Hopefully, we don't get too aggressive, because we don't know all the rules." Boots: Some nice-looking black and silver adidas flats. "I just got them at Dick's Sporting Goods." Who's the best player you've played with or against? "We've played a lot of good people with our team, but we came here one time for lunch (bunch), and there were a lot of guys and they were easily the best players I've played against. They're so good." Why do you play? "We just enjoy it, just the physical thing, keeping active and not going into a slump where you don't do anything active." Why soccer instead of another recreational sport? "It's so much running. My brother plays basketball and my other brother plays football, and they came out here, and they were like, 'Oh man, that's a lot of running.' It's definitely worth it for getting in shape. It's more than what people think." Do you have an on-field pet peeve? "No. Everybody seems really nice. I just try to stay nice and positive and everybody seems to be that way." Do you or your team have a rival? "No, not yet. We don't know anybody." What aspect of your game needs work? "Mostly just communicating and passing and stuff like that. And that's what we've gotten better at — at first, we didn't do a lot of passing, we were kind of all over the place and didn't know what we were doing. ... We don't really care about scoring the goals — I mean, that is the idea — but more like about passing the ball and trying to get to each other and play as a team." You haven't played in eight years. Does the game come back to you? "It definitely comes back. I'm not horrible, but it's not all there — there's a lot of pieces missing. And I've never played indoor; this is my first time playing indoor. Everything was outdoor until this. So this was different. I felt like I was playing a whole new game."
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