Senior Quentin Torbert has been playing soccer since the age of three, and is now planning to continue his soccer career with Division II school Dominican University of California in San Rafael.
With his commitment, Torbert has become one of the seniors featured in The Falconer’s Next Level Seniors series, which highlights student athletes at La Salle who plan to pursue their sport at the collegiate level.
Torbert’s decision to continue playing soccer is thanks to the fact that soccer has always been a part of his life.
“It was the first sport that I could play,” he said. “I was always just kind of good at it, and it was the first thing I got used to, so then I stuck with it.” He also played club baseball as a kid, though he eventually got bored of it.
On the field, Torbert now plays the position of striker. Though this was the first position he played, he also played center back and a wing position before moving most recently back to striker.
“I told my coach I didn’t want to play on the outside because I didn’t like 1v1s, and I said ‘I think I belong in the middle of the field,’” Torbert said. “He trusted me on it and put me at striker.”
For club soccer, Torbert previously played for the Eastside Timbers for about 10 years and now plays for Oregon Premier FC (OPFC). For him, club soccer is more competitive than high school soccer, which he plays more for fun. While soccer was one factor in Torbert coming to La Salle, he was mainly looking for a change in schools.
Torbert’s weekly schedule consists of soccer practice for his club team typically on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and his team recently won the State Cup championship in May.
Balancing school and sports has been a challenge, especially after he got more serious about soccer.
“It’s pretty hard balancing school work with soccer, it’s a lot of late nights,” he said.
Coming to La Salle from Sam Barlow High School, Torbert has also noticed an increase in academic rigor, but according to him, help from teachers is part of how he manages, and he appreciates the good community.
Though it can be challenging, overall, he is glad to still be doing both. His time at La Salle has brought many enjoyable moments, his favorite of which came this past soccer season.
“I’d say that the Hood River win was probably the best memory,” he said. “I think we were more hype for that game than we were for the final.”
Torbert has dealt with many injuries while playing soccer. He has been concussed around four times, with one not fully healing before he started playing again, which affected a bit of his brain function.
“I noticed it more in school than soccer probably, but soccer I definitely noticed that my reflexes are a little slow, I’m a little slower in processing things, and I definitely play scared compared to how I used to play,” he said.
While it did have some effect on his college decisions, he still has every intention of playing as hard as he can at Dominican University of California despite this. In addition to the people, Torbert is excited for the new experience at the University of California where he will already know some teammates. Senior Adam Clem plans to attend, as well as three members of his OPFC club team.
“I’m definitely excited for a new environment,” he said. “I’m excited to go see my old teammates and have that experience being away from home and having that freedom.”
Torbert’s biggest inspiration in soccer is his OPFC coach Conor De Rosas Peterhans, who helped him a lot with the recruiting process for college and was the first player to really connect with Torbert and his teammates.
“He really took his time to help us as people, and he really helped me through a lot of my struggles,” he said. “He connected with me like I hadn’t had before with any other coach.”
The journey to playing soccer at the collegiate level for Torbert had many ups and downs. He said Division I schools would sometimes reach out and show interest in him, but in the end would not respond. He found Dominican University after a tournament in Las Vegas, California when scouts came to watch a teammate of Torbert. They asked his opinion of the teammate — who now plays for Dominican — and liked his answers, so they reached out to ask him to play for them.
Torbert thinks the school is a good fit for him.
“It’s honestly just a really nice location, and I didn’t want to go to a huge state school,” he said. “I feel like it’s a good amount of people for me, [and] it’s on the smaller side.”
Torbert attributes his successful recruitment to work ethic and the type of player he is, as he believes working hard will get more results than natural talent.
“Over the last couple years, there have been a lot of people who are generally more talented than I am when it comes to soccer,” he said. “But some of the main reasons I got recruited … was because of my work rate and what I do off the ball.”
For people looking to participate in the recruiting process and trying to play soccer in college, Torbert emphasized the importance of staying consistent and not giving up.
“Even if coaches aren’t responding to you, it just takes one,” he said. “There’s definitely going to be a lot of rejection, [but] you need to stay persistent.”
