Goalkeeper Jackie DesJardin’s stats speak for themselves. Last year she helped the Georgetown women’s soccer team set a single-season records for fewest goals allowed (14) and most shutouts (11). DesJardin is one shutout away from becoming Georgetown’s all-time winning goal keeper, and she is only halfway through her college career.
DesJardin impresses off the field as well. As a science student, the junior has been named to the Big East Honor Roll three times and was selected to participate in the Georgetown Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholars program.
When asked, DesJardin is modest about her accomplishments on and off the field, explaining that it’s just what she expects of herself.
“That is something that I have kind of done all my life,” DesJardin said. “In high school I played three sports and had school. It is just something I have to do. It can be hard sometimes. Especially when you have to stay up late to study, but you have to go to bed early because you have a game. There are conflicting interests. But I am here for the school, so I always keep that in mind.”
DesJardin has played soccer, in combination with multiple other sports, since she was young. At one point she played midfielder, but as she matured and grew to a height of 5’11”, she found herself in goal and performed well.
As the last line of defense for a team, the goalie is a difficult role to handle.
“With the position of goalkeeper, any mistake you make invariably leads to a goal,” said head coach Dave Nolan. “Keepers live and learn by mistakes.”
Yet errors are the one statistic that DesJardin does not rake up.
“She has not really hurt us in her career with mistakes,” said Nolan, who strongly believes he has the best goalkeeper in the Big East. “She has brought [her game] to a level where she is very consistent and tends to make the right decision all of the time. That is all you ever want from a goalkeeper.”
With such an important role to play, DesJardin doesn’t shy away from admitting that she gets nervous. However, she has
grown more confident in her abilities as her college career has progressed and tends to rely more on her natural instincts when in goal.
“When I overthink things I tend to do worse than when I just react and go with my first instinct,” DesJardin said. “When I am thinking too much a lot of times that gets in the way. My mentality is to just stay calm and have confidence.”
Confidence and the ability to bounce back quickly are essential in goal. The opposing team is always focused on getting past the keeper. And even the best goalkeepers get scored on.
“[Being scored on] is something I struggle with because I automatically assume that everything was in some way my fault,” said DesJardin. “There are goals of course that I could have saved or are my fault. I have to recognize that and improve from that, but I also have to realize that I can’t change some things. I cannot change if I have been scored on before, but I can change if they score on me again.”
This season DesJardin hopes to be able to shut out more opponents. Confident in the defenders supporting her—sophomore Gabby Miller and junior Michaela Buonomo—DesJardin indicated that the defensive team has come to understand and trust each other more.
“If I know what they are capable to do in front of me I know how to compensate for that and position myself well,” DesJardin said.
DesJardin has only allowed one goal in six games this season, a major contributor to Georgetown’s 6-1-0 start. With two more years to improve, only more doors will open for DesJardin. But even now Nolan is confident that DesJardin could have a professional future in soccer. It will be only one of many promising options for DesJardin; knowing her, she won’t let any pass by.
