This Easton High School student-athlete is poised for success
Photographs courtesy Vasquez family
You could say that Dafny Vasquez is a coveted athlete at Easton High. Coaches in the school asked Vasquez to play basketball and run for the indoor and outdoor track teams in recent years. She was flattered by the interest yet decided to take a different path than many athletes: play one sport.
That was soccer. It’s one of her biggest passions in life. Looking back, Vasquez calls it one of the best decisions she’s ever made. Soccer consumes her because so much of her time is spent playing for two teams—the Easton varsity squad and Shore Football Club.
“This is basically her life—playing soccer,” Easton Assistant Girls Soccer Coach Tony Lhotsky says. “And really wanting to progress at it.”
Shore FC competes in the United States Youth Soccer National Premier 1 League and travels as far away as Florida and Colorado for showcase tournaments. Vasquez sees much tougher competition than in high school.
Two other things made it hard for Vasquez to play other sports: working on a farm and training at two different gyms. She gets excited working out at Planet Fitness and the Easton Family YMCA for up to two hours a day. It allows her to stay in peak physical condition while elevating her soccer skills. It’s all about getting faster and stronger.
“In my free time, I am the person that loves to go to the gym,” explains Vasquez, who took up soccer in elementary school. “If I am not playing soccer, I am at the gym or church.”
Vasquez, a 5-foot-2 striker, hopes for a college scholarship and she may get it. She plans to major in business management with the lofty goal of owning her own real estate company.
Two Division I schools, Fairleigh Dickinson University and University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and a pair of Division II soccer programs, Emory and Henry College and Holy Family University, have aggressively recruited Vasquez. She will also strongly consider several Division III schools, most notably Washington College in Chestertown.
Photographs courtesy Vasquez family
Whatever college Vasquez, who carries a 3.3 grade-point average, attends, they get a very well-rounded player with superb quickness, a strong soccer IQ, an outstanding and accurate shot, and strong leadership skills. Vasquez finished as Easton’s all-time leading goal scorer with 69.
“She is a Division I-caliber player,” Shore FC Girls Soccer U19 Coach Mike Leach says. “Her speed is phenomenal—like track star speed. No one can take the ball off her feet. She is technically skilled. She is so good, she was playing on U19 team in eighth grade.”
At Easton, Vasquez had a stellar career with plenty of accolades and a whopping 12 overall hat tricks. Not a bad total considering that she missed 14 games during the 2024 season because of an ankle injury.
The Maryland Association of Coaches of Soccer named the 18-year-old an All-State Player twice and she earned Bayside Conference First-Team three times.
“Arguably, she is the best girls player ever to come out of Easton High School,” Leach says of the Easton co-captain.
Vasquez had some unforgettable games last year. She scored a career-high five goals in routs over Cambridge-South Dorchester and Wicomico. Another strength of Vasquez’s is her toughness. She has four brothers and consistently played with and against older male players. Many times, she’s the only female on the team in pickup games. It helped her develop into an elite player.
“It’s a faster pace type of soccer,” Vasquez says. “It has made me be more aggressive and play with grit.” And made her fearless.
