This week’s athlete spotlight will be focusing on an incoming star at Fitchburg State University. True freshman Madison Dawkins has been quietly putting up incredible numbers in goals for the women’s soccer team this year. Just so people can understand how impactful she has been, within the first three weeks of September she won MASCAC Freshman of the Week twice and MASCAC Defensive Player of the Week twice. Getting these accolades is impressive enough as is, but coming into the program and winning four awards within the first month shows complete dominance written all over it.

For the people who care about stats; she has tallied 82 saves, a save percentage of 84.5%, has only let up 14 goals, and is at a 1.98 for goals against average. Those might not seem insane at face value but these are the four biggest statistics for keepers and she is top four in the conference because of it. When I brought up all these stats the only thing she had to say was “I’m just playing my game and I’m not letting other people affect that,” Dawkins seems to have one goal, to be great.

Dawkins path to greatness did not start on Elliot Field, she talked about how in high school she “started over the senior keepers” similar to here at FSU. We spoke about her relationship with senior keeper Skyla Vaudo and Dawkins had nothing but good things to say about her. She said that “she isn’t only supportive to me but the entire team” and in practice Dawkins tries to learn as much as she can from the veteran.

I am always curious on how different teams prepare for conference games versus non-conference games. Most people would think that conference games would add pressure to someone who has only been playing a collegiate sport for a few months, but it takes a lot more than that to shake Dawkins. To her, each game is just as important as the last because “[she plays] the same no matter what because a game is a game,” This mindset is something you love to see from a rookie keeper. Dawkins has potential to put up a historic season for the falcons and plans on doing exactly that.