About Elise

Elise began playing with her current club at 4 years old. Her first team was a co-ed, parent coached, 5-a-side team that she played on for 3 seasons. She loved playing with her boys and cried when she moved to a girls u7 team because she wanted to play with the boys. Just before her 7th birthday, Elise found out many of her school friends were trying out for the u9 Academy and she wanted to play with them. Even though she was young, the clubs u12 coaching director, Emily McMillian, allowed Elise to "give tryouts a shot" and ultimately join the academy program. Before long Elise was playing her weekend games with older girls and doubling up to also be a playmaker for teams on age. During this period Elise would ask before each game "Is this a 'scoring game' or a 'helping game'."

In fall of 2017, the club formed "the grey team" designating the team as playing up a year. Over the 3 years before the squad became the core of the 07 ECNL team, Elise and her teammates had the opportunity to receive great coaching, earn the North Carolina number one ranking in u12 and u13, and play a number of bigger, stronger athletes that taught them to not only rely on athleticism.

Elise Larimer is a great ball-striker and is designated to take corners and freekicks for each of her teams, she enjoys pressing the keeper and center backs to force mistakes and keep them from switching the ball, her professionalism in practice and ability to lead by example is elite, but Elise's soccer IQ is her biggest distinguishing quality. Multiple current and past coaches have commented that she is the "smartest player on the field." Her field awareness and soccer IQ was developed by playing with older, bigger, stronger girls, where she couldn't simply run past them and where she was often muscled off the ball. In response, Elise learned to take advantage her ability to see the field, move the ball quickly, and her knowledge of the game to find teammates making a run, exploit her opponents' mental mistakes or change the pace of the game based on the situation.

As a 9 in the ECNL, Elise often found herself playing between two big center-backs and receiving the ball under pressure with her back to goal. She believed the size difference was her biggest weakness as a player, so during Covid she began lifting to build the strength and mass to hold the ball. Over the next year she put on over 20lbs of muscle and transformed her ability to play with her back to goal.

Elise's success in the classroom started with a desire to get better grades than her older brother and meet the expectations of her teachers and parents; but as she entered middle school, Elise learned that college coaches would use grades to break a tie between two similar players. Since then, Elise has prioritized academics like soccer practice, good nutrition and exercise to help her reach her goal of playing college soccer.