Fourth-year Bison netminder Madison Wilford's goal is to play professional soccer when her U SPORTS career ends after the 2018 season. That shouldn't be too much of a problem based on the way she's performed up to this point in her life.

Wilford started playing soccer when she was three years old and developed into one of the province's most promising goalies as the years went along. She age-advanced while playing for Bonivital Soccer Club and also trained with the province's top male players in high school at Glenlawn Collegiate, which housed the national development centre.

The Kinesiology and Recreation Management student also took part in multiple national team camps, including in Oregon with the U20 squad in 2013 as a 16-year-old.

"You get to those national team environments, and the girls are shooting just as hard as the boys are," she says passionately.

"I learned so much in such a short amount of time though. Every practice I would have to get back to my hotel room and write everything down that I learned, because you just have to try and absorb it all."

Bisons head coach Vanessa Martinez-Lagunas took notice of Wilford's play, and successfully recruited her for the 2014 season, where she redshirted. She started eight games as a freshman in 2015, finishing with the conference's second-best save percentage. The following year, the job was all hers, as she started all 14 contests and had the second-most saves in Canada West.

But in 2017, Wilford decided she needed to take a step back from the sport.

"Anyone that asked me at that point in time, I had said it was time to take a break," she says.

"Through high school I played soccer every single day before school and sometimes after school again and so it was time. When you play that long and that intensely, it started to take a toll on me mentally so I definitely needed a break."

That break didn't last long however, as Wilford came back with four games left in the regular season, starting two after fellow netminder Justina Jarmoszko went down.  

"They had an injury, and I'm not going to turn that down if they need me," she says.

"I came back and was happy being on the bench, and then I think when Justina got injured and I had to come in, I was eating a casserole on the side of the field in the middle of the game. And then I had to go in, so that was interesting, but it all worked out."

Wilford hasn't lost a step in her final year with Manitoba. She's recorded four straight shutouts and will look to keep her momentum going this weekend in her final regular season games for the playoff-bound Bisons. She's also vaulted into the top ten for career saves in conference history, with 245 over her four-year career.

Despite all her accolades, when she looks back on her U of M career, it's the relationships she's built that stand out.

"There's been such a variety of people that I've met over the years, and each group has been equally special," she says. "They're so wildly different but they're all such incredible people and that's definitely what I'll take forward with me."