Winning the gold in China was a huge accomplishment for our team. We battled adversity, losing 3 key players before the tournament, and I am really proud of the way we came together as a team and found a way to win. It was a surreal moment and definitely a dream come true for me.

Every athlete has a different training regimen. As for me, I like to focus on a few different aspects of training. I work on fitness through running, agility training, and strength training. I also make sure I’m eating properly and taking care of my body. For soccer specific skills, I usually always have a list of things I want to improve on and come up with a game plan on how to develop those areas of my game.

I work a lot on finishing. It is one of my favorite things to do. I like to take a bag of balls out to the field and go through a series of bending, driving and placing the balls into the net. I pick out a target in the net and try to be as precise as possible when I am finishing.

There is always a jump from each level, but I have been fortunate to play on various youth national teams, which definitely helped my development. When I transitioned from high school to college, I was playing for the U-19 national team in the first ever Youth World Cup. This helped me understand that when I got to college the game would be played at a higher level. The same thing happened when I was in college. I was involved with the national team and that made my adjustment to the professional level a little bit easier. I think as I continued to advance, the thing I noticed was the game kept getting faster and faster. Everything I did – decisions, passing, dribbling, etc. – had to be done a little bit quicker.

I love watching Wayne Rooney play. He is a true goal scorer and I love his determination and mentality.