Heading into her last season as a Lady Patriot, Faith Allen, rising senior and forward for the women’s soccer team at FMU, is relieved to have surmounted the obstacles of COVID-19, and is ready to leave it all out on the field.

“It’s been different because of COVID-19 and because we’ve been searching to find a coach since sophomore year,” Allen said. “It has been a really interesting experience, but I think it worked itself out.”

The previous women’s soccer coach, Lindsey Morgan, left at the end of the season in the fall of 2019. Throughout the spring of 2020, the Lady Patriots were looking for a new coach, but then the pandemic hit. Chelsea Parker, the newly hired coach of the women’s soccer team, was unable to work with the majority of her new team until the spring of 2021.

“It’s been stressful, I’m not even going to lie,” Allen said. “Not only because of COVID-19 did we start late, but we also started late because we could not find a coach. There is a lot to do with pushing yourself to want to do something because you do not have a teammate. I had to be more independent with my stuff.”

Though it was stressful, Allen understands the fight was worth it, and the season overall was successful. As a junior on the field, Allen was able to step more assuredly into her role as a leader.

“I feel like I’ve done better than I have in the past few years, which has a lot to do with self-confidence,” Allen said. “I am a forward. We have to maintain speed to beat the last defenders back there. I feel like I am pretty fast, and I know where to be at up top and how to find space on the field to get the ball.”

She has been honing her skills as a forward for quite a long time now. She initially began  playing soccer at an early age and has continued to play with passion ever since.

“I started playing soccer when I was in second grade,” Allen said. “All the other sports I played—I ran track, played soccer and did cheer—they were chosen for me, and I decided for myself to play soccer. It was my decision, so I valued it. And it was like, if I chose to play this sport, then I have to be good at it, you know?”

However, despite playing for years, she never imagined she would continue the sport at the collegiate level.

“In high school, I had no thought to play college soccer; I just never thought I was good enough, you know?” Allen said. “So, I just never thought about it until my senior year when I received offers from colleges. With soccer, I feel like I lack skill, but because I was fast, it made up for it.”

She fell in love with FMU and the Florence community and decided to continue her soccer career here.

“Florence is a bigger version of where I am from,” Allen said. “It is big, but it is small—everybody knows everybody. It felt like I was still home.”

Soccer is not her only passion, however, as Allen also does acting and modeling in Charleston, SC. One of Allen’s lifelong dreams is to become an actress.

“It has always been my passion [to act]. It is what I have always wanted to do,” Allen said. “My friend recommended this place in Charleston where you had to go through a try-out process to be a part of it. If you do well, they offer to fly you out to New York. I did well, so they flew me out to New York, and that is how I kind of got into all of this stuff.”

She has performed in two movies and one TV show, “The Righteous Gemstones,” and only plans to further her acting career moving forward. Allen has also made a name for herself on TikTok, amassing around 30,000 followers and even being paid as a content creator.

Tune in to the Lady Patriots soccer team in the fall to catch Allen in action again for her senior season.