March 28, 2002

MILWAUKEE - Janice McGann (Oakville, Ontario /Trafalgar H.S.), who signed a National Letter of Intent last month to play for UWM women's soccer coach Michael Moynihan next season, was selected to Soccer America's Top 25 College Women's Recruits last week.

A member of the U-19 Canadian National team, McGann was picked as the 23rd best recruit in the nation. All of the Americans selected have played with the US National team, while McGann joins Canadian National teammate Carmelina Moscato and two other foreigners with National team experience.

"The direction of the program in the past five years continues to go up, and after the season we had last fall, we want to continue to build on that success," Assistant coach David Nikolic said. "Adding Janice will definitely help. We have high hopes and expectations for Janice to make a contribution from day one."

"I have very high expectations of myself," McGann said. "I always like to be a major contributor on the field, and though college soccer will be an adjustment, I will work towards keeping this standard. I wouldn't say I put pressure on myself, but it's more an expectation to play well in every game, wherever it may be."

A midfielder/defender, McGann has played for the Canadian National Team for two years and is currently training back from an ACL injury. She will join the Panthers in August following this summer's World Championships, which Canada will host.

"Playing for your country is every soccer player's dream, and to play in the inaugural U-19 World Cup--especially in front of a hometown crowd--would be amazing. Having this goal in mind makes me work even harder towards my full recovery. I'm definitely excited to go to UWM and I've never been involved in this type of system--US college soccer is very important where at the club level in Canada, there are just leagues and it is not as serious. So it will be different, but good, to play in this type of competitive atmosphere. It's a perfect match for me, because I'm very competitive."

McGann joins a list of the Top 25 recruits where every player has committed to schools in the Atlantic Coast, Pacific-10 or Big East, with the expectations of Moscato going to the Big Ten (Penn State) and Danish National team player Johanna Rasmussen to the Big 12 (Texas Tech).

"It's just huge for our program and school to be able to bring in this type of talent," Nikolic said.