Former Churchill Soccer Standout a JHU Rising Star

Like he had consistently handled incoming freshman for most of his 19 years as Johns Hopkins University’s women’s soccer coach, Leo Weil planned to sit Pam Vranis early in her career and progressively ease her into a substantial role on the team.

As Weil acknowledged, most freshman, regardless of how talented, usually struggle initially with the transition from the high school to the college level.

Not Vranis, though. The 2011 Winston Churchill grad not only had little trouble with the transition, but quickly earned a starting job as a center midfielder for the Blue Jays and wasted no time establishing herself as one of the team’s primary offensive catalysts. She now enters her sophomore season expected to make an even bigger impact.

“She was a standout right away for us,” Weil said. “She fit right in. The attacking center midfielder position she plays is a position where we’ve never really had the complete player until we got her. She can do everything.”

He added, “She’s definitely a scoring threat, she works hard, she wins a lot of balls in the air and she hustles back on defense. She just does everything that we want an attacking center midfielder to do. She really just doesn’t have any weaknesses as a player.”

A prolific goal scorer and a talented distributor, Vranis was named an All-American as well as the Gazette’s Player of the Year as a senior at Churchill in 2009. She also received first-team All-Metro honors from the Washington Post.

As a freshman at Johns Hopkins, she tied for third on the team in assists (8) and also tallied six goals. Her 19 points were fifth-best on the team despite the fact that she didn’t start the first five games of the season.

“She’s just the type of player that makes things happen all the time,” Weil said.

Now, Vranis is hoping to build on that success as a sophomore, noting that she is much more comfortable, confident and prepared heading into her second season with the Blue Jays.

“I’m very excited for the season,” Vranis said. “I just want to help out my team in anyway possible. I’m hoping to be able to create a lot of scoring opportunities and want to score a few more goals, too, especially in important situations.”

The Blue Jays finished last season 19-4-1, including 8-2 in the Centennial Conference, and advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years. Vranis isn’t satisfied with that, though, and hopes to help Johns Hopkins advance further this season, possibly claiming the first national championship in the program’s history.

“I really want to win a national championship,” Vranis said. “If not this year, then at least once in the next three years.”

Like Vranis, Weil has his sights set on winning a national title, something he says Vranis will play a key role in helping the Blue Jays accomplish.

“We want to win a national championship,” Weil said, “and Pam is going to be a vital person in [our quest] for that. We’re going to depend on her a lot. She’s sort of the engine that drives our team. Pretty much everything that we do offensively goes through her.”

He added, “She has the potential to develop into one of our best players ever.”