Few have the discipline to wholeheartedly dedicate themselves to
achieving a goal. Kara Kornfeld, senior defensive player for the
Saint Louis University women’s soccer team. She has dedicated
herself not only to success on the field but in the classroom as
well.

“She works hard in class and on the field,” said coach Tim
Champion.

Kornfeld started playing soccer in kindergarten and has been
playing ever since. Her senior year of high school she was a member
of the All-metro and All-state teams as well as Missouri defender
of the year.

“She is a player that works hard, puts in the extra effort on
her own, and you never have to yell at her,” Coach Champion
said.

After one year of playing for Indiana, Kornfeld returned to her
hometown of St. Louis to play for the Billikens.

SLU offered Kornfeld a chance to make great achievements on and
off the field.

“It’s a great opportunity at SLU,” Kornfeld said. “I can play
and get a great education.”

Clearly many of the other women saw the same thing as Kornfeld.
Ten of the 11 women on the starting line-up for the Bills this
season, including Kornfeld, grew up playing together. So, not only
do they play well together, but they are all friends on and off the
field.

“The friends I have inspire me to play, because soccer has
always been such a big part of my life and all my friends are from
soccer,” Kornfeld said. Last season, Kornfeld started all 22 games
and was a critical part of the Bills defense.

The Bills this season are a young team looking for leadership.
That leadership can be found in Kornfeld.

“She has the maturity on the field that we sometimes lack,
because we are a young team,” Champion said. She is a key player in
the organization of the Bills defense.

“Leadership has been important, I think I have really helped the
younger members improve,” Kornfeld said.

In her final season at SLU, Kornfeld hopes to achieve something
that has never been done by the women’s soccer team at SLU: Make
the NCAA Tournament.

“We want to reach the NCAA tournament,” Kornfeld said. “We have
never made it there, and we feel confident about our schedule this
year.”

Kornfeld is not the only one who sets their sights on the top.
“I would like her to be the first senior to get into the NCAA
tournament for SLU,” Champion said.

Dedication to soccer has helped to mold the player Kornfeld is
today. “It has made me more confident, more driven to succeed,
helped me to keep my priorities straight and keep things in
perspective,” Kornfeld said. “I have become a responsible
individual.” Kornfeld will be graduating this December from SLU
with a major in elementary education and hopes to teach in St.
Louis.

She now anchors the defensive backfield, a unit which has played
a major role in SLU’s two shutouts. In a season this young, it
serves as a promising note to shut-down opponents in such a
fashion. All told, the Bills have given up only five goals in as
many games.

For an athlete like Kornfeld who has dedicated herself
wholeheartedly to her sport, a final season can be much more than
winning and losing.

“I look forward to enjoying all my last things, especially the
home games,” Kornfeld said. “I want to take it all in and realize
how lucky I have been.”