Over her three years at El Paso High School, Tessa O’Neill has not only become a vital part of the EPHS girls soccer team, but has also managed to break the school’s record for most career goals as a junior.
The previous record of 90 was held by Briana Galvan (class of 2021), Tessa currently has 115 career goals that includes 29 goals this season.
Tessa has been playing soccer for a total of seven years and said only started playing because of her brother.
“At first I just played soccer because it was kind of forced onto me, because my little brother played. And I’m not going to lie, I was really bad at soccer for the first three or four years, but then I started getting better and now I play because I enjoy it,” Tessa said.
Tessa credits most of her success over the years to her strong support system, her coaches, and the contributions of her team.
“Having a good team that’s supportive and wants to do good, and having my coaches have us all do good together have all helped me get here,” Tessa said. “My coach wants to go far this season and go undefeated and that’s really helpful too.”
Tessa also believes that a part of her success is in part to being able to play on the same team with her sister, Emma, who graduated last year.
“Playing with my sister my first two years here really helped me because I was less conceited than I think I would have been without playing with my sister,” Tessa said.
Tessa plays center forward for the team, now that she’s reached her goal, her primary focus is playing as well as she can this season.
“I’m just trying to get as far as I can this season, the goals don’t really matter. It’s just how I perform,” said Tessa.
While Tessa is proud of breaking the school’s record and scoring as much as she has, she believes that this is an accomplishment not only for her but for her team as well.
“It feels good to break the record, but it’s also a representation of the team because I’m scoring the goals, but the defense is doing their part to not let any goals in and then the rest of the team is helping me score so it’s really not just a me thing. I’m just putting the ball away for the team,” Tessa said.
Head coach, Peter Fargo, said he tries his best to help Tessa improve in any way he can.
“I’m just an observer, and when I see that she needs to change something, I tell her to change it, pick up the tempo, slow the tempo down, things like that, that I can see from the outside that she can’t necessarily see while she’s on the field,” Coach Fargo said.
As for her future in soccer Tessa currently plans to continue her career at New Mexico State University, but has stated that she is open to whatever may change in the future.
“I’m already committed to NMSU (New Mexico State University), which is a pretty known thing, but wherever the wind takes me I’ll go. We’ll see what happens in the next two years, but that’s where I’m headed,” Tessa said.
