This Tri-Cities soccer superstar landed on a pro team in Europe

Each day that Cydni Cottrell worked at her marketing job — doing demos — these last few months at a Costco in Salt Lake City, she thought about soccer and her lost opportunity.

“I thought about it every single day,” Cottrell said.

The former Chiawana standout had completed her college eligibility in the fall of 2019 at Eastern Oregon University, and she had gone out on a sour note.

A shoulder injury late in her senior season sidelined Cottrell.

This was after she had been a three-time All-Cascade Collegiate Conference all-star. She was named an NAIA honorable mention All-American after her junior season.

She had 53 starts in goal over her Eastern career, going 36-7-6 with 24 shutouts.

All of that is good, but Cottrell didn’t like her ending.

And, she thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told that recruiter for that Spanish women’s soccer team early in the summer ‘no’ when he asked if I wanted to go to Europe and play.”

“The first time, I thought I was done with soccer,” said Cottrell told the Herald she waited for her flight to Europe at the Salt Lake City airport. “After I was done with school, I moved to Utah. I was just living and working and having a good time.”

But the soccer thing kept bugging her. So she texted her old EOU coach, Jacob Plocher, telling him she missed playing.

“He told me to reach out to the recruiter again,” she said. “He said that good goalkeepers are hard to find in Europe. So I did. They still wanted me. It all happened so fast.”

So Cottrell jumped on a plane, and as you read this, she is in Spain.

The team is called FC Malaga City Femenino. It’s a first-year, fourth-tier franchise on the Andulusian coast in the town of Almunecar.

They’ll be going up against women’s teams from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

“They haven’t started playing yet,” Cottrell said.

Here’s the ironic thing — Cottrell already knows one of her teammates. Kamiakin grad and forward Parker Lee already is on the roster.

Lee, who completed her college eligibility in 2019 for Embry-Riddle University in Arizona, signed with FC Malaga City back in July.

“I’ve never been out of the country so this will be a totally new experience, especially being there for 10 months,” Lee said at the time in an Embry-Riddle new release. “It looks absolutely beautiful and I’m so thrilled to be able to experience living there and learning the culture.”

The fact that Lee is already there makes it that much more exciting to Cottrell.

“Parker and I have known each other for a long time,” said Cottrell, who has been getting information from Lee as to what it’s like over there.

“I’m most excited about the culture of soccer over there,” Cottrell said. “We stay in villas, and they also want us all to learn Spanish while we’re there.”

And this gives her a chance to play the game she definitely still loves.

“I look back when I was 5 years old,” Cottrell said. “I grew up watching my sister Britny play, and I could see how exciting the game was. I grew up playing other sports, but to me there was nothing like soccer.

“All of the team is striving toward one goal. There is a family aspect to the game. Every team I have been on has been a family. My best friends are all soccer players.”

The game, Cottrell says, has made her the person she is.

This move allows Cottrell to get her foot in the door of European soccer. And now she gets a second chance at the game.

“My contract runs until next June,” Cottrell said. “But I’m gonna get to re-write my ending.”

Baseball

Southridge graduate Mason Martin is getting some extra work in this month by attending the Pittsburgh Pirates’ instructional baseball camp.

Martin, named the Pirates’ top minor league player in 2019 after he hit 35 home runs and drove in 129 runs in two stops in Class A, spent this summer at the Pirates’ minor-league setup in Altoona, Pa.

That’s where Pittsburgh’s backup players were stationed and on call if they were needed to join the big club at a moment’s notice.

Martin, who was scheduled this summer to play Double-A ball in Altoona, never got the callup.

But he spent each day in Altoona playing in scrimmages, getting two or three at-bats a day against Double-A or Triple-A caliber pitchers.

Now, in Florida with the other Pirates’ prospects, he’s getting more at-bats.

Games for all instructional teams in Florida and Arizona are scheduled through about mid-November.

The Padres’ instructional roster includes former Tri-City Dust Devils Mason Fox (pitcher), catcher Jonny Homza, and infielder Jordy Barley.

Former Dust Devil infielder Owen Miller, who was traded from San Diego to Cleveland, is in the Indians camp.

Hockey

The Tri-City Americans have loaned 17-year-old Parker Bell to the Junior B Campbell River Storm of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League.

Bell, who is from Campbell River, could be there until he has to report to the Americans after Christmas.

Bell is just one of a number of Western Hockey League players being loaned to lower-level clubs, allowing them to get some playing time in before the WHL season begins.

Golf

Mike Kasch, the professional at Pasco Golfland, fired a 72-69 for a 1-over-par 141 last week to finish tied for fourth at the Pacific Northwest Senior Oregon Open Invitational in Pendleton.

Kasch took home $2,500 for placing so high among the 160 golfer field.

The tournament was held at Wildhorse Golf Resort and Birch Creek (the former Pendleton Country Club).

Richland amateur Chris Indall, who plays out of Meadow Springs Country Club, placed tied for 50th with a 73-79—152 (12 over par).

Jeff Coston of Semiahmoo Golf and Country Club won the tournament for the fourth consecutive year, shooting a 7-under-par 133 (rounds of 66 and 67), finishing 5 strokes ahead of runnerup Brad Karns of Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

Not only was it Coston’s fourth straight win, but he’s taken the tournament title eight times overall in the last 13 years.