Sara Ybarra – Midfielder
Something you hate can end up being something you love doing and pursuing. That was the case for Sara Ybarra, Cal State Bakersfield Midfielder. Starting at the age of six Ybarra was put into soccer by her parents but she remembers telling her mom, “take me home” soccer was too much running and sweating for little Ybarra she preferred to dance or play t-ball. But than younger sister syndrome hit her when she started seeing her older brother play that’s when she decided she wanted to pick up the sport up again. At the age of eight Ybarra realized soccer wasn’t too bad especially when she started playing at a more competitive level.
Prior to joining CSUB’s women’s soccer team Ybarra was playing for Cal State Long beach. She respected her previous team and coaches, but she made the decision to transfer in 2024 for her own good.
“I wanted to be somewhere where I could like make an impact on a program in like a playing time standpoint.”
Being a transfer came with some challenges. She explained how CSUB’s women’s soccer team is a team very much focused on the fitness side of soccer. Lots of training compared to her previous school, it had her struggling her first three weeks with the `Runners trying to keep up but she believes the hard work they put into fitness is what got her to be the player she is now. The result of fitness training raised her stamina, being able to last through longer periods of time in the game without needing to come out, and as well as helped tap into her grit of being a more aggressive player in the field.
Her development on the field wasn’t just through fitness it was within the team as well. Ybarra mentioned the coaching staff were an impact on her journey
to becoming the player she is today.
“The players they recruit, I feel like the competitiveness that we all share is like a common trait that just really develops you as a player and you know with a constant like pressure to be better than what you were the day prior.”
Overall, Ybarra has played midfielder at CSUB for two season (2024-2025) for a total of 32 games and starting in 29. With having played with the team for 32 games she shared that her favorite memory with the team would be the tournament run they had last season (2024). Even if the last game did not end up in their favor the memories and emotions the team as a whole went through together is what made that run so memorable for Ybarra.
Now Ybarra is graduating with the class of Fall 2025 with a bachelor’s in general biology. Ybarra’s primary goal for after graduation is to continue playing soccer, more specially she hopes she can play somewhere in Mexico. But if that is not the right path for her, she would go into pursuing pharmaceuticals or clinical lab research.
And her advice to younger athletes is to, “Always know that if you love the game, that will help you overcome any hardships or adversity.”
Rashaad Ogun – Forward
Graduating in 2020 from secondary school, Rashaad Ogun decided to pack his bags and move 4,300 miles away from home. Wanting to continue his journey within soccer
Ogun had to say goodbye to his family in London to go to Jefferson College located in Hillsboro, Mo. Coming to America it was for sure a scenery change for Ogun, compared to London, Missouri had more agriculture. But that wasn’t the only change Ogun faced when moving, soccer a sport he’s been playing since he was six years old was different. He described America’s way of playing soccer was way more “direct” and required more physicality compared to how he was used to playing soccer back at home.
With experiencing differences it’s good to have good influences and support around you and Ogun expressed that his first coach in Missouri, Brocklon Chatman, (2021) was a person who helped guide him into his first year so that his second year would by smoother and he’d have a good season.
Being thousands of miles away from home Ogun tries to visit his hometown every Christmas for about a month. That’s one out of 12 months of the year, that can be pretty hard for some people to not be able to visit their close family too often, but Ogun found ways to make his homesickness not hit so hard.
“Making friends definitely helps. So, like not missing the home aspect becaus
e you kind of got a home away from home. But yea I’d say that the most important thing is like having a good family supporting, I still talk to my family all the time.”
What keeps Ogun so busy during the year is his reason for moving from London to Missouri, to California, soccer. Soccer is a sport he’s been playing for as long as he can remember, from growing up chasing around his older brothers trying to play with them, to when he was about five or six when he started picking it up on his own. And although he dabbled with track, rugby and basketball, soccer was the sport that just came naturally to him.
In his time at Cal State Bakersfield (2023-2025) Ogun played forward for a total of 42 games starting in 29 of those games. Reminiscing his time with CSUB’s soccer team one of Ogun
’s mentioned how fun the team was and how many laughs they shared as a team but he mentioned that his favorite memories would be playing against Club
America in 2024 or when he scored against University of California, Davis, 2025 leading the `Runners to a victory against the Mustangs, 3-2.
With his time at CSUB coming to end Ogun is looking to stay in the sports world. He is already getting personal training certificates, but he also wouldn’t mind maybe stepping into the medical sales. With that being said Ogun is officially graduating CSUB with the class of Fall 2025 with his bachelors in Kinesiology.
“One piece of advice I’ll give to a young athlete is, I’d day always keep your head up. It’s different at times, it’s easy to like lose your confidence…always keep your head up always know where you’re going and just believe in yourself.”
Catalina Roggerone – Midfielder
“In Argentina soccer is everything. We live and die for soccer.”
Catalina Roggerone, midfielder for Cal State Bakersfield women’s soccer team since 2022 has played a total of 67 games and started in 62. But that’s not all about this Argentinian born soccer standout Roggerone has had the opportunity to join Argentina’s U-20 national team and had a chance to qualify for the World Cup back in 2022, and then got called up to train in 2023 with the Argentina Senior National Team for the Women’s World Cup, she ended up making the final-26 candidates.
Roggerone’s soccer journey travels back to about when she was eight years old. She remembers her grandparents had a big garden and she would always be playing with her cousins and brothers, but it was until she was 12 years old when she really felt like soccer was more than just a game.
Traveling 6,071 miles away from home, Roggerone was sure to face some challenges but one challenge she explained was hard for the first few months was the language. Having been born and growing in Argentina Roggerone found it difficult to communicate well seeing as everyone else spoke English when she only knew Spanish at the time. Luckly for her one of her teammates and one of her coaches were Argentinian and two teammates from Ecuador which meant they were able to help Roggerone overcome that language barrier.
Apart from language barrier challenges Roggerone noticed she would have to get accustomed to the American culture. From the food, people and more specially how you approach and greet people.
“I remember the first time I came, I say hi to a friend with a kiss on the cheek because we say hi in Argentina like that you know, hi and we kiss our cheeks and she was like ‘what what are you doing?’ So, I think I needed to start adapting to a new culture.”
With all the cultural changes Roggerone also had to face some changes within soccer. She explained how soccer in the US is more focused on the athletic portion and how in a way when you’re playing sometimes it feels like a job, as opposed to in Argentina when you’re playing soccer you can see the passion behind the player and their love for the sport, it doesn’t feel like a job. She gets to see both sides of world within soccer. She travels to Argentina when she has the opportunity, like when she would play for the Argentina team, but she always comes back to California to play for CSUB.
Playing for two completely different teams you have to be able to adapt to both of them. Having been playing with Argentina’s national team since she was 15, she was already comfortable with how Argentina played but when joining CSUB, she had to implement new routines and tactics that weren’t a norm for her other team. She explained how within her college experience she learned that here you have t but more athletic effort such as running, as opposed to Argentina is focused more on tactics and technical techniques.
Apart from all the differences Roggerone was grateful for being able to play back home and here at CSUB. Memories she’ll be able to remember are all the morning practices she had with her team, to her the CSUB’s women’s soccer team turned into like her family. She doesn’t regret moving thousands of miles away from home to gain experience in something she is so passionate about it’s something she would tell any international student with a choice, “If you’re an international student, just say yes to the experience. I know it’s scary, like a new language, new everything but it’s just going to open your mind, so just take the risk because its going to be worth it.”
Graduating CSUB with the class of Fall 2025 with a bachelor’s in business administration doesn’t mean Roggerone’s soccer path is ending. She is committed to continuing her soccer career, hoping to play for as long as she can.
