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News Release

TEN QUESTIONS WITH KELLY FIORANI

5/16/2006

Kelly Fiorani ranks third all-time in career goals and points scored in UMBC women's lacrosse history.

Kelly Fiorani has played soccer in addition to lacrosse for the last three years.

Kelly Fiorani

Senior

Lacrosse Midfield/Soccer Forward

Eldersburg, Md./Liberty

Lacrosse Notes: Finishes her career ranking third all-time in career goals (140) and points (189) and seventh in assists (49)… Ranks second all-time in Division-I goals and points… Team co-captain… Second on team with 39 goals and 53 points, third with 14 assists in 2006… Led team with 45 ground balls, 39 draw controls and 25 caused turnovers… Selected to the 2006 America East All-Conference First Team and All-Championship Team… Named UMBC Outstanding Senior Athlete… Named 2003 Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year… Also earned America East First-Team All-Conference honors in 2004.

Soccer Notes: Walked onto the team as a sophomore… Finished her three-year career with five goals, five assists and 15 points… Had her best season in 2004, when she started 10 of 18 games and was the team co-leader in assists (4) while ranking second in points (10).

Q: You have had one of the best lacrosse careers in UMBC history, but your senior year was your best. How do you explain that?

Kelly Fiorani: I think as a Division-I athlete, you improve every year. That’s the goal of most athletes, to get better with every year. Coming into my senior year, I was probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I had a very solid team behind me; we had a lot of freshman come in and they were all good, competing for spots. Being in shape and having such a strong team behind me was crucial. And you have to go out hard; it’s your very last opportunity, your last season, the last time you’re going to step on UMBC’s turf. That played a huge role in it as well.

Q: Talk about the difference in the team with the new coaching staff.

KF: I think that this year’s team was very positive. We were very good at turning around bad losses into positives. Not necessarily making excuses, but finding something positive out of it and knowing that we have to move on and improve off of that loss. Off the field, we’re very, very close, but we have been every year. That’s not a huge difference. We’ve always been a very tight-knit team, and we’ve always believed. But this year was just one step stronger. Our belief was even higher, especially when we beat Boston, a ranked team. That’s never happened before, so that made us a hundred times closer, a hundred times more into believing about our team. We’re just a very close, determined group of girls. Even when we lost our head coach for the majority of the season, we were still very positive about it. She would send us inspirational messages by phone, wrote things down to have the other coaches read to us. So never let her absence really hurt us.

Q: You rank top 10 in all three major scoring categories. What’s it like to have your name up there with the best?

KF: I try not to let it get to me too much. It’s obviously quite an accomplishment. I’m proud of what I’ve done. It’s something that I’ll always have with me. I just hope that the girls on the team will pass me. I hope that everyone has that good of a career, and hopefully as I’m coming back to games, the girls that I played with are passing me.

Q: What will you miss most now that your playing career is over?

KF: Probably the competition. I’m going into a sales position after graduation, so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of competition for me there, but it’s not as aggressive and as much energy involved in it. So I’ll miss being competitive, I’ll definitely miss the girls, I’ll definitely miss the coaching staff, but most of all the love for the game. I’ll be able to watch, but knowing that I won’t be able to jump over the fence and get in on it is really the saddest part of it all.

Q: What has been your fondest memory of UMBC?

KF: Definitely athletics. Between the soccer team and the lacrosse team and all the teams in between, just walking down campus and running into at least five athletes everywhere you go. I don’t think that’s the case at large schools. At large schools it’s hard to come by your friends in the middle of the day, it’s too big. Walking down UMBC’s campus, I always run into friends of mine, whether they’re athletes or not.

Q: What was your biggest thrill on the field?

KF: Beating Boston this year was the absolute best thing. Even when we lost to Loyola, that was also great because we lost by only two and it was a down-to-the wire game. It was really a moral victory for us because I think until that game we believed and we said we believed but that’s the game that really sparked our belief in ourselves and picked us up for the rest of the season. But beating Boston was definitely by far the biggest thrill. We acted like we won NCAA’s. It was awesome. And the UMBC community afterwards over the next few days, congratulating us; I felt famous for a couple days.

Q: How did you become a two-sport athlete?

KF: I didn’t play soccer until my sophomore year. I had a rough fall ball (my first year); we didn’t have very many games. My grades were kind of low and I never got low grades; I think it was because I had too much free time back then. And I really missed the game of soccer. So in the winter, I met with both coaches and they agreed, and that following fall I walked on (to the soccer team). I’m very big with time management. I like to be busy, I like a lot of things on my plate. I just have a huge love for soccer as well, and I was just missing something. I loved that team too, I loved the head coach. I had a great time there and it gave me a big balance. A lot of people struggle during fall ball because they just want to get to the season and play games, but I was in season, I was playing games. And when all the soccer girls are going through spring ball, where they’re doing all the working out early in the morning, I’m in season again. So I loved it.

Q: Talk about the turnaround with your record going from 5-10 to 10-8.

KF: That was awesome. It was quite an accomplishment for us. A lot of teams didn’t think we could hang with them and would look over us, and we just weren’t having it. Ten wins in a season for us is a big accomplishment, especially with new coaches coming in. Of course they can look at our old stats, but paper doesn’t show everything about a team. They came in and didn’t know exactly what to expect.

Q: You got a lot of personal awards this year, like America East First-Team All-Conference and UMBC Outstanding Senior Athlete. How much do those things mean to you?

KF: They mean a lot. My mom always tells everyone in the world about it. But I wouldn’t have gotten the awards if it weren’t for my team. Obviously I don’t do it on my own. One of us had to be MVP of the team. More than one girl on the team made first-team all-conference. It’s a team thing. I don’t really try to harp on the awards too much because it’s just a plaque or it’s just a piece of paper. To me, the memories and the team are so much more important, and that’s something that you can’t really show, you can’t really give an award for that, but I will take with me much longer than those things.

Q: Who has been your biggest influence?

KF: My dad, definitely. He is just amazing to me. I grew up with my father in a single-parent home. Obviously parents teach you right from wrong, this and that, but he always has been so trustful and let me make my own mistakes and teach me along the way without being too demanding. He did a good job of showing me what not to be. He believed in practicing what you preach, and he’s just a huge role model for me. He always let me make my own decisions. If I decided in the winter that I didn’t want to play lacrosse anymore, he would have been fine with that. As long as I’m happy and as long as I’m working hard to whatever my goal is, he has always been very supportive.