Eastern women’s soccer assistant coach Jenny Anderson-Hammond traveled to Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 5-7, to compete in a combine for the newly-formed Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) League.

Anderson-Hammond said she was pleased with how the combine went.

She said she competed in a variety of training sessions in addition to three 70-minute matches.

“I thought it went really well,” Anderson-Hammond said. “I felt prepared going into it.”

Anderson-Hammond was among more than 125 women selected from the United Soccer League W-League to tryout for the WPS.

She said after she got through her first day nerves she settled in and felt comfortable.

“I had nerves on the first day but was able to overcome that,” Anderson-Hammond said. “It’s a different environment when you’re trying out because you’re trying to showcase your own talents, but at the same time you have to go out and do what got you there and play to your own strengths. I felt like I did that.”

Anderson-Hammond said she knew most of the other women at the combine either personally or by following their collegiate or national and professional careers.

She said knowing everyone fairly well made the combine go much smoother.

“The soccer community is a lot smaller then people think,” she said. “But knowing most of them made it so I was pretty comfortable with everyone. It made for a great atmosphere.”

The WPS will hold two player drafts with one in October and another next January.

All Anderson-Hammond can do now is see how everything plays out.

“Now the waiting begins,” she said. “I just have to wait and see what happens in the drafts.”

While Anderson-Hammond waits to see if she is selected in the WPS drafts, her focus turns back to coaching the Panthers.

“My focus is back on preparing for Ohio Valley Conference play and getting ready for that,” she said.

The Panthers next game is 5 p.m. Friday when the team travels to Western Kentucky for their second of four-straight road matches.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.