By Bill Sheehan

It's less than 24 hours after a heartbreaking 2-1 soccer defeat in which she crashed to the ground multiple times and wiped away blood after a ball struck her in the face. But Cal State Fullerton midfielder Haley Brown is already looking ahead. 

"Each game is a battle, but it's part of the sport. If it means getting a bloody nose or getting tackled, that's what we do here. I will throw my body and my heart into the game for my teammates," Brown said a day after Long Beach State women's soccer team beat Fullerton with a goal in the 89th minute. 

"We have to put that game behind us. We must keep working and trust that we are a good-enough team to win games and reach the Big West conference tournament. But we also must learn from yesterday. What can we do better? How can we prevent that from happening again?" said Brown, a team captain. 

The Titans, 4-9 overall and 1-3 in Big West Conference play, will try to rebound against conference foes UC Davis (8-4, 3-1) tonight at 7 and Hawaii (0-7-2, 0-3-1) on Sunday at 5 p.m. Both matches are at Titan Stadium. 

"We've done a really good job of getting that first goal in our games," said Brown, 22, who hails from Walnut Creek. "If we get that second goal earlier, it will give us more confidence and give us that buffer than could really help us. We just have to trust each other." 

Her coach has put his trust in Brown for several years now. 

"Haley has been an awesome leader and motivator. No one works harder on the field," said Demian Brown, who is in his 15th year as the Titans head coach. "She sets the standard on the field and in the classroom for what we want our players to be like." 

2020 Big West Scholar Athlete of the Year 

The redshirt senior, who is easy to spot on the field with her red hair, has a 3.99 cumulative grade point average and was the school's 2020 female Big West Scholar Athlete of the Year. She was one of eight Big West nominees for the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year award. Brown will graduate in December with a degree in Child and Adolescent Studies. 

A member of Fullerton's Big West championship teams of 2017 and 2019, Brown is currently second in goals with 4 and second in points with 10. An elite scorer as well as a grinder who 

isn't afraid to mix it up, the 5-foot-9 student-athlete credits her year-round training and conditioning for putting her in a position to succeed. 

"I'm never going to take a play off. I'm strong on the ball. And I'm always going to be running," said Brown, who covers about eight miles on the pitch each game. Her size and aggressiveness allow her to fight through balls and get off crosses, which are medium- to long-range passes near an opponent's goal. 

Another strength is her versatility. As a freshman, she was a center midfielder. She was moved to forward her next two years, scoring seven goals and collecting nine assists as a junior. She redshirted in 2020 when the season was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This season, Brown is alternating between wide midfielder and center forward. 

Delaney Dombek Lindahl, a teammate, isn't surprised with Brown's ability to handle different roles. 

'She does whatever the team needs to win" 

"She does whatever the team needs to win. It's hard to switch from the inside to the outside, but we all have confidence she will do her absolute best at either position." said Dombek Lindahl, a redshirt senior defender from Trabuco Canyon. "She's been known as a super-hard worker since she was a freshman and is always at the top of the fitness tests. 

"Haley is encouraging and intense. She coaches people at new positions and hypes us up with pregame speeches. She is the most caring and generous person who will drop everything to help you." 

Tom Brown isn't surprised his daughter is making her mark at Fullerton. "From a young age, Haley loved helping others and has always been a very compassionate and caring person," he said. "During elementary school, she assisted teachers after class. In middle and high schools, she worked as a teachers' assistant." 

When the pandemic shut down college sports in March 2020, Brown moved back home with her family and attended school remotely. Demian Brown phoned her in early summer 2020 and told her she was eligible for a fifth year at Fullerton under the NCAA's revised policies in the wake of the pandemic 

"I took a couple days to think about it before deciding to come back for a final season of soccer. I'm very committed to the team. I know that if I hadn't come back, I would regret it." 

Cal State Fullerton's Haley Brown was named to the 2019 women's soccer All-Big West Second Team and was the school's 2020 female Big West Scholar Athlete of the Year. 

Non-stop training at home during the pandemic 

From the time she moved back to Walnut Creek until her return to Fullerton in late January this year, Brown trained on a regular basis. "I ran every day and worked with my old coach from 

Diablo Futbol Club in Concord." She also would take her sister Taylor or her longtime boyfriend, Nick Cerdan, to a park and have them shoot and pass with her. "They were my mini-team," she said. 

When Brown and her soccer teammates returned to Fullerton, the squad was initially divided into four quadrants, or pods, for workouts. The team narrowed it to two pods before uniting into one big group a month later. 

Brown has been on soccer teams for most of her life. Her mother, Britt, signed her up as a first-grader with a recreation league team, primarily to provide some exercise. Brown fell in love with soccer, joined competitive teams in fourth grade and never played another sport. 

She competed for Walnut Creek Soccer Club and the Diablo FC. At Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, she was an attacking midfielder and a four-year letter winner. As a junior, Brown notched 21 goals and five assists as she helped lead the Las Lomas to the CIF-North Section championship. She was a captain and named All-League MVP as a senior. 

Just before her Las Lomas junior season, her Diablo club was competing at the San Diego Surf Cup when Brown caught the eye of Fullerton's head coach. "My Diablo coach said that Demian was interested in me, and I was told to give him a call," she said. "I had never heard of Cal State Fullerton – it was not on my radar." 

A quick commitment to the Titans 

The Titans coach invited Brown and her parents to visit the Fullerton campus on their drive back to Northern California. "I was really impressed, and a couple weeks later I committed to come here," she said. "I'm so thankful to play for Demian. He is an amazing coach." 

In each of her first two years at Fullerton, she appeared in 18 games, scoring one goal as a freshman. 

Brown had a breakout season in 2019, starting 21 of 22 games, scoring 23 points (seven goals, nine assists) and earning All-Big West Second Team honors. She scored two match-winning goals that year, including the winner against CSUN to give the Titans the Big West regular season title. 

The 2020 Scholar-Athlete award was "an incredible honor," said Brown, who is complementing her Child and Adolescent Studies, or CAS, major with minors in sociology and literacy education. She works as a course assistant in CAS 301, a research methods class, and is a research assistant for Sasha Zeedyk, a professor in the Child and Adolescent Department. 

Volunteering at local schools, hospital 

Brown has volunteered at local schools, working with special education pupils at Mariposa Elementary in Brea and assisting with after-school activities at Rolling Hills Elementary in Fullerton. "I love working in classrooms with kids," Brown said, who has also volunteered at Providence St. Joseph Hospital Orange. 

She recently mentored a friend's daughter, helping her organize and submit college applications. The girl, who has ADHD, was accepted at a college of her choice. 

Brown, who envisions a career in autism research, is currently applying to combined master's-doctorate programs in school psychology. She is interested in studying how environmental factors, such as parenting, bullying or poverty, influence an autistic child in the classroom. 

"My experiences at Cal State Fullerton have been incredible," said Brown. "I'm going to miss this place a lot." 

Before she leaves, Brown would like to achieve one more goal. "We post the years Fullerton has won conference titles on the outside wall of the locker room building," she said. "That's something that is important to me. I want to get another number on the wall." 

#TusksUp pic.twitter.com/m1g1TeBvn7

— Titans Women's Soccer (@FullertonWSOC) October 7, 2021