Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Angelina Conant and her family at this week’s letter signing ceremony.

By Ray Hamill —If the past few years are any indication, Angelina Conant will bring a tenacity and determination like few other players to the college soccer fields.

On Tuesday, after four hugely successful years playing for the Loggers, the Eureka High graduate signed a letter of intent to play collegiately for Folsom Lake College.

And one of the most successful players ever in the history of local high school soccer will join a Falcons program that has been one of the most successful in California JC soccer in recent years.

The Falcons are two-time defending state champs and appear poised to challenge once again in 2025.

And Conant appears poised to play a key role in that challenge.

“We’ve seen her play a handful of times and we really appreciate her tenacity,” Folsom Lake head coach Donny Ribaudo said. “She seemed to have a really good work ethic, and her vision when she plays the holding midfield position is pretty good.

“She’s good at switching the point of attack and she helps to build the attack.”

Equally impressive is Conant’s track record as a team player.

Since breaking into the Eureka High team as freshman, Conant has played a pivotal role in helping to lead the Loggers to three league championships and four straight North Coast Section titles.

Conant and teammates Paige Rodgers and Lorena Hernandez are the only student-athletes in the history of H-DNL sports to walk away with four consecutive section winning medals in the same sport.

And it was one of her former Eureka teammates, Saedra Joseph, who put Folsom Lake on her radar after Joseph appeared in 31 games over the past two seasons for the Falcons on the march to the back-to-back state titles.

But anyone who has watched Conant evolve as a player, ever since she first put on her cleats as a 3-year-old, knows she was always destined to play at the college level.

Submitted photo – Angelina Conant during her playing days with The Purple Dragons.

“It was like releasing a cheetah onto a field of rabbits,” is how one of her teammate’s parents described a young Conant when she debuted with The Purple Dragons of the Humboldt Youth League.

According to her father, Dan, they had to go to the league board to request a waiver because Angelina was too young to officially play in the league but did not want to wait until she turned 4.

The rest, as they say, is history.

And now Conant is eager to make some more history and add a state championship to her long list of accolades, which includes being named the Humboldt Sports Player of the Year after her junior season.

(She would also have been the Humboldt Sports Player of the Year as a senior, had the award been handed out in 2024.)

She certainly left her mark with the Loggers and evolved into a key team leader on a very new-look and young Eureka team last fall.

“I couldn’t be more proud of her moving on,” Eureka head coach Melania Valdez said. “She definitely deserves it, and I know she’s had her heart set on it for a long time.

“She leads by example. She’s definitely in it for the win, but she’s also in it to make the team better.”

After the Loggers were edged by Arcata for the Big 4 championship in Conant’s freshman year, they would go on to win three straight league titles.

Conant grew in stature with each passing season, making her presence felt alongside a very talented group of seniors in her junior year.

And it’s the time she spent with her teammates that Conant says she will miss the most from playing at Eureka High.

“Those were definitely my best memories,” she said. “And just like every game was always like a challenge, especially Fortuna this year, and Arcata in years past.”

Conant is expected to continue to play a key role in the heart of midfield for the Falcons, and Ribaudo feels she has a big upside on the college fields.

“We feel like she has a lot of potential to evolve and grow with our program,” the Folsom Lake coach said.

Tommy Learmouth, who coached Conant at Eureka for three seasons, also believes she will be a success at the next level.

“I think her dad said it best. She’s always all business,” Learmouth said. “She came in, and in her first year I never had to wonder what I was going to get. She leaves it all on the field and she leads by example.”

Conant’s game has been honed on the local soccer fields, not just playing for the Loggers, but also the many years she played with local travel clubs, like AC Samoa and Sequoia FC, as well as stints with Santa Rosa United and Mendocino County Soccer Academy, which involved a lot of travel over the years.

But that seems to be paying big dividends as Conant gets set for the next chapter and challenge in her career.

And she is excited about heading to Folsom Lake.

“It was really nice,” she said of the college after a recent visit. “The field is super nice. It’s probably one of the nicest things there. And the campus is small but it’s like really close together … And I really liked it.”

Conant, who wants to major in psychology, says she would like to play for a four-year program after her time at Folsom Lake.

“That’s the goal,” she said.