As Marquette women’s soccer scrimmaged Northwestern and Wisconsin last spring, one of the team’s most essential pieces was halfway across the globe, representing a country she had never visited.
Then-redshirt junior Ryley Bugay went from walking down Wisconsin Avenue to walking down streets in the Philippines.
“It’s a different lifestyle,” Bugay said. “It’s a developing country.”
Bugay, whose mother’s ancestry is Filipino, was there to compete with the Philippines’ national team in the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Asian Cup.
“They were really on the lookout for American Filipinos,” Bugay said. “They wanted to bring in a wider range of players with different diversity and college experience.