By Duane Cochran for FightingFalcons.com

Abby Johnson, if anything, is resilient.
 
In 2016 the former standout prep soccer player at Parkersburg High School signed with a Fairmont State University soccer program in its infancy. The Falcons had only begun officially competing in soccer at the NCAA Division II level in 2015 and in the fall of 2016 Johnson was one of 11 freshmen joining the program.
 
Today Johnson is one of only three seniors remaining from that recruiting class and has become one of the cornerstone players of a program which has made tremendous strides since her first season.
 
"When I made my visit here I just fell in love with the school," Johnson said. "I loved the size of it because it was important for me to have relationships with my professors so I could stay on top of my school work.
 
"I also really liked the coach here at the time Patrick (McGinnis). He recruited me here, but I never got to play for him. On my visit I got to meet some of the players and stay with them and I felt at home with them right from the start. I just knew this was where I wanted to be."
 
What Johnson didn't know, though, was the struggles of being in a new program at the collegiate level, but she quickly learned of those.
 
"It was a little crazy here my first year," Johnson said. "From the time I signed, to playing my first fall and then my first spring we went through three coaches.
 
"When I look back now I'm definitely proud of where the program is now as opposed to where it was when I got here. My first season we literally went into every game with honestly a negative mindset. We were expected to lose. Everybody expected us to lose. Nothing against anyone I played with, but we weren't a very close team. It wasn't like we were part of a family. We lost almost every game that season and for the most part everyone was pretty down because we lost so much. It was so frustrating. Honestly, I really didn't know what to do."
 
What Johnson did was stick it out and trust the process. In January of 2017 Fairmont State hired Brandon Heembrock to direct its soccer program and since then Heembrock has righted the ship, so to speak, and thanks to now senior players like Johnson, Cameryn Ciresi and Katie Doyle has the Falcons enjoying unprecedented success.
 
In 2016 Fairmont finished 2-12-3. When Johnson was a sophomore the Falcons, under Heembrock, ended up 5-7-6 and last year as a junior the team enjoyed its first-ever winning season finishing 8-6-4 overall and earning the program's first Mountain East Conference Tournament bid as the No. 3 seed in the Northern Division.
 
Johnson led Fairmont State with 16 points, including a team-high seven goals in 2018 and garnered second-team All-MEC honors for her efforts. This season Johnson has three points and one goal, a huge one late in Fairmont's 2-0 win over Urbana last week. The Falcons are currently 4-2-1 overall and 3-0-1 in MEC play.
 
"After that first season I knew there was going to be a coaching change," Johnson said. "I didn't want to panic and jump to conclusions. I thought it was best for me to stick it out, see what would happen under the new coach and then go from there. I also had built relationships here. I felt given the right situation we could have success and we could build and improve our program and that's exactly what we've done. We've literally gone from the bottom to the top since I started here.
 
"By no means, though, are we done. We feel like last year we achieved one level – our first winning season. This fall we want to better that. Our team right now is so tight and close-knit. We are a family. We play for each other. To be quite honest I've never really had the feeling I have now on any team I've been on in the past. It's special and it's nice to know we have each other to rely on."
 
Johnson's contributions to the Falcons' success in recent years hasn't gone unnoticed. She's earned the respect of her teammates through her tenacious play.
 
"Abby is a great player," Ciresi, who has played all four seasons with Johnson, said. "She's one of the most technical players on our team. She's also very tough. She's not the biggest player, but she gets thrown around a lot because of the positions she plays. She's also very resilient and a really hard worker.
 
"Honestly, she's a player we all know we can count on at all times. Take last week for example against Urbana. Late in that match it was scoreless and you could just tell from the look on her face that she was going to score. She wanted it badly and in like the 83rd minute she scored our first goal to give us the lead and we ended up winning 2-0."
 
For Johnson, who has had to battle an early-season ankle injury, that goal helped to re-establish her confidence.
 
"That goal was a big one for me because I'm coming off of an injury and I had lost a little bit of my confidence," Johnson said. "It was a struggle for me early on this year, but that goal made a lot of things right for me. Now I feel like I'm back to normal. It's my senior year and I'm going to do whatever I can to help our team be its best."
 
Heembrock knows too he can count on his senior standout.
 
"All three of our seniors have been tremendous for our team, not only this year, but in the past helping to get our program to where it is now," Heembrock said. "When they were freshmen there was some turmoil in the program and we had to right the ship. We've done that. You can't take anything away from what those three have done to get to where they are now and where we are as a program. We've enjoyed success both on and off of the field.
 
"Abby has played a major role for us. Last year she was our leading goal scorer and a big reason we were able to enjoy our first-ever winning season. She's put a lot on her shoulders to do that again this season. She got off to a bit of a slow start because of an injury, but we've told her the conference season is the most important part of the season for us and we want her healthy and ready to go for that. She will be. That's just the type of player she is."
 
Johnson is a daughter of Brody and Hilary Johnson of Vienna. Her father was a college wrestler at Waynesburg University. She began playing soccer at the age of five. Johnson dabbled in other sports, but found soccer to suit her best and has stuck with it excelling in high school, at the club level and now in college.
 
Life, however, hasn't always been easy for Johnson. She has epilepsy and has had to learn how to deal with that being a collegiate student-athlete.
 
"Abby has dealt with a lot in her short life," Heembrock said. "She has epilepsy. My dad has that too, so I'm familiar with it. When she told me about it I was able to share my insight on it with her and I think that made her feel comfortable and confident that she could come to us, talk to us and let us know if something was going on.
 
"She does a lot of work with the Epilepsy Foundation of West Virginia. That's great. She's so much more than just a soccer player or a student-athlete. It just shows how special she is."
 
Johnson admits dealing with epilepsy isn't always easy, but says her roommates, Ciresi and Doyle, have been very supportive and helpful to her in dealing with it.
 
"I had my first seizure my freshman year here," Johnson said. "We had taken a nap and I got up, reached for a water bottle and collapsed and Katie (Doyle) caught me. Cam has caught me in the past too. Those two have both been so supportive and great to me. I can't say enough about the friendships I've built with them. They are, no doubt, my best friends for life.
 
"Having epilepsy is scary and hard, but it's something I have to deal with. I take medicine. I've probably had four or five big seizures. I average about one a year. It's usually early in the morning and it's usually around this time of the year because this is when I'm the busiest. I'm dealing with school, soccer and waking up early. Stress, I think, is a big factor. It's my biggest trigger. It's a very draining experience. It's like I've just done the most intense workout of my life, but I get past it and move forward."
 
Johnson is a biology major at Fairmont State. She's expected to finish work on her undergraduate degree this summer and then plans to attend graduate school to obtain a Master's Degree in Marine Biology.
 
For now, though, her focus is on making the most of her senior season on the pitch.
 
"It's insane to think that I'm a senior already," Johnson said. "Cam and I talk about it all of the time. We have like 15 games left in our careers so we really, really appreciate everything and every moment we have remaining as members of this team. Something as simple as hanging out with the team we know this time next year we won't be able to do that. We'll be out in the working world as normal people and not having any more fun.
 
"It's tough to think this has been a part of my life for so long and in a few months it won't be anymore. That's why every minute and every match I get with this team I want to make the most of it."
 
Knowing Abby Johnson she'll certainly do just that.