Sara E. Merker
Women's Soccer/Cross Country (2007-2009)
ISCC and Region Player of the Year, NJCAA Honorable Mention All-American
Waubonsee Female Athlete of the Year for 2008-2009
Set Women’s Soccer’s single-season and career marks in goals and points
Key member of first ISCC and Region IV Champion soccer team, and two-time ISCC and Region Champion Cross Country teams
Size, strength and speed are easy to recognize. It is a lot harder to quantify desire, instinct and heart. Sara Merker may not have stood tall physically, but she clearly was a standout for Waubonsee.
Merker graduated from Downers Grove South High School where she set a Mustangs’ record for assists while helping the team finish third in the state as a sophomore. She arrived in Sugar Grove and quickly helped put Waubonsee women’s soccer in the national conversation for the first time ever. Sparked by Merker, the Lady Chiefs’ soccer program recorded its first winning season in 2007. She was named to the All-Region IV First Team and the All-Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference First Team, and was tied for ninth nationally among all NJCAA Division I players with a school record 24 goals. She finished with 54 points on the season, tying her for 14th nationally in that category. At the same time she was helping lift up the women’s soccer program, Merker also assisted the Lady Chiefs’ Cross Country team. With Merker as the squad’s fifth runner, the team ran off with the ISCC title and the Region IV crown, eventually finishing 31st at the NJCAA Division I National Championship Meet.
The following year Merker delivered again by booking 21 goals and a dozen assists while leading the Lady Chiefs to their first ever ISCC title and NJCAA Region IV crown. Merker was tabbed the ISCC and Region IV Player of the Year, a pair of firsts for Waubonsee women’s soccer. Her 54 points again placed her in the top-20 nationally and she was selected as the NJCAA’s Division I Offensive Player of the Week midway through the season. Merker’s accomplishments were fully recognized when she was named to the 2008 NJCAA Division I All-American squad as an Honorable Mention selection. Although Waubonsee lost in the NJCAA District ‘D’ finale, the team established 13 program records. Individually, Merker established a pair of Waubonsee career scoring records with two-year totals of 45 goals and 108 points. As if all of that was not enough already, Merker also earned All-ISCC and All-Region status simultaneously for the Cross Country team that fall, helping them to again win the ISCC and Region IV titles and advance to the NJCAA Division I National Meet. Merker was the runaway winner of Waubonsee’s Female Athlete of the Year for 2008-2009.
Merker then accepted a soccer scholarship to perennial NAIA power Lyon College in Arkansas, where she was a TranSouth Athletic Conference scholar athlete. She came back to the area and completed a Bachelor’s degree in English from Aurora University in 2011. Later that year she ran the Chicago Marathon and began working at the USA Athletic Club and Spa in Aurora. Merker then worked as a student teacher at Cosmic Montessori in Aurora before moving on to St Mark’s Child Development Center in Aurora, where she currently teaches the arts and language development to young children.