Near the end of a recent practice, Ute keeper Cheyanne Mulcock juggled a ball at midfield. She was wearing an arm sling as a token of her recent string of bad luck -— but also a smile. A simple moment that showed that though she has been down, she certainly isn’t out.
Soccer has been a part of Mulcock’s life since a very young age.
“My parents threw me in at four, and I never stopped.” Mulcock said.
Her first goalie duties came at the age of 10 when her team’s keeper became ill. The team had no backup, so they turned to Mulcock.
“I loved it, so I was OK with it.” Mulcock said. “With that first dive, I fell in love with being a goalie. The diving and making the big saves, I loved that first game and it stuck.”
Mulcock developed close bonds with the girls that she played with. Those friendships made her want to play collegiately. She wanted to know she would have those types of companions while attending school.
When Mulcock came to the U, she served for two years as the primary backup for Hannah Turpin in goal. She saw some field time, but nothing consistently.
“She was always asking, ‘What do I need to do to play?’ ” said head coach Rich Manning. “She just wanted to compete.”
After two years of being Turpin’s apprentice, Mulcock’s desire and patience seemed to pay off at the start of the 2012 season. Turpin had graduated, and new transfer Lindsey Luke was injured. Mulcock’s chance to take the job had come. She started the first three games that season but in a dramatic turn of events, she would not finish the third.
Mulcock tore her posterior cruciate ligament in a game against BYU. It was a season-ending injury.
“I am sure it was a huge emotional setback for her,” Manning said. “She is such a big competitor. It really it was her opportunity that after two years to say ‘Hey I can take the job now.’ ”
The injury cost her the starting spot, and she was sidelined once again — watching and waiting.
“It was my first major injury, so it definitely took a toll.” Mulcock said. “Being injured is not the funnest thing, it takes some adjusting to do. You definitely learn some things about yourself.”
Luke stepped in for Mulcock and played well enough to earn a spot on the All Pac-12 Freshman team.
“You have to work with what you can control,” Mulcock said. “If you try to do things you can’t control, it just makes things worse and you start spiraling downhill.”
Though she was obviously disappointed, Mulcock’s team never let her discourage herself. The friendships that drove her to play in college shone when she was injured.
“[The team was] always there for me,” Mulcock said. “If I needed anything, I knew I could talk to any of them. They don’t outcast you if you’re hurt. You’re still part of the team.”
Luke was one of the first to check on Mulcock after her injury, going over to her home after the game to make sure she was OK. Though the two are competitors, Mulcock said the competition ends after practice.
After rehabbing through the 2012 season, Mulcock hoped to compete for the starting job once again — but she could not stay healthy. Mulcock entered the 2013 preseason with a hamstring issue and then suffered a minor concussion during training. She wasn’t cleared to play until the day before Utah played BYU. As fate would have it, Luke was overtaken by an illness and had to sit out against the Cougars.
“There’s some weird karma thing going on where they can’t get healthy at the same time.” Manning said.
The Utes lost to BYU 1-0, but Mulcock made some key saves to keep Utah in the game and earned high praise from her coach.
Mulcock stayed in goal for the next three games as Luke continued to recover from her illness. The Utes went 2-0-1 in those three games, and Manning said there would be competition when both Luke and Mulcock were healthy.
However, the “weird karma thing” struck again for the Utes and Mulcock.
Near the end of the Ute’s 4-0 win over Weber State, Mulcock injured her clavicle. She is expected to miss four to six weeks, which could possibly extend to the rest of the season.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” Mulcock said. “I learned from the last injury, and I am trying to focus on the things that I can control. I can’t control the injuries I have been getting. So, I’m focusing on staying positive and doing whatever I can to help the team.”
Mulcock is in her fourth year in the program and though she hasn’t played in many games, Manning recognizes the lessons the younger players can learn from her.
“She’s a veteran, she has a lot of experience and we need that,” Manning said. “She’s an example of, ‘if I have personal disappointment, I got to do what I can to help the team.’ ”
To her credit, Mulcock has not let her personal disappointment affect how she carries herself around the squad.
“To the team and to me and to the other coaches, she’s very positive,” Manning said. “She’s just going to do to whatever she can get to get back out there. I am sure in moments with her roommates, her family and friends she’s like, ‘I cant believe it,’ but she has done a really good job with the team in staying positive.”
Mulcock recognizes that her season might be cut short once again, but her career is not over. She said her primary goal for next season is staying healthy.
“I want to come back stronger,” she said. “I was able to see what I needed to work on. So, I am trying to focus more on the things that I need to work on and get back.”
She has come back once already and is prepared to do it again, this time with a better ending in mind.