For the second straight fall season, Johnston native and Roger Williams soccer player Bianca Robbins was named the Commonwealth Coast Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year.

Robbins led the team with 17 goals to go along with two assists to earn the award. She was the only player in the conference to notch double-digit goals and was 11 ahead of the next closest.

Although Robbins had another stellar campaign and helped guide RWU back to the playoffs, she did face some adversity early on which forced her to miss nearly the entire preseason. Robbins ruptured her quad muscle last fall and played injured and elected to have offseason surgery to repair it. Doctors told her that the success rate of the operation was 50 percent, and should it fail, she would not be able to play soccer ever again. 

The surgery was a success, but it required a grueling and lengthy recovery process that kept her out of action until the week before the start of the regular season.

“It felt good (to get the award), especially considering I was coming off of a big injury from last year. It felt good to be on my game and I also would not have been able to get the award without my teammates. They played a big role. Overall it felt good,” said Robbins. “The recovery process was long. It was two weeks of being on and off crutches, I couldn’t lift anything, my family helped me tremendously. I couldn’t walk, I could put pressure on it, I couldn’t go swimming, I couldn’t do anything for the first six weeks.”

Robbins would return to action and hit the ground running, emerging as the conference’s most dynamic scorer for the second fall in a row. Robbins also had a familiar face helping her, as her younger sister Julia joined the team as a freshman and scored three goals and five assists. Julia was named to the CCC’s Third Team. She played her high school soccer at Cranston West.

“One of my favorite games ever was when my sister assisted on one of my goals and I assisted her. It was amazing since she is a freshman and I am a senior. It was one of those games that stood out to me that my surgery worked and I could play college soccer with my sister, I was really looking forward to playing with her,” said Bianca. “It was amazing, I love playing with her and she’s my best friend. It brought tears to my mom and dad’s eyes because they were excited for it and they had seen how we grew up. Seeing her play and seeing her get her first award as a freshman is amazing because I know she worked so hard.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bianca is eligible for a fifth season and will be returning next year along with Julia. Bianca hopes to see the team return to the postseason and take the next step forward and win a conference title. 

“We have a lot of potential. We are losing some key seniors but are returning a lot of good underclassmen. As long as we work hard and play with this momentum then we will have a shot to win a championship,” said Bianca.