51����

By Tim Bresnahan
Staff Writer

When you’re a parent, every compliment your child receives is beautiful music. Watching a televised soccer game three weeks ago, Methuen’s Eleanor Molina heard a Mozart concerto.

‘The commentator gave me the chills. He said something like, ‘As far as I’m concerned, the best player on the field is Jennifer Molina,’ ” she said of her daughter. ‘Here’s Jenny’s name being mentioned with Brandi Chastain, Tiffeny Milbrett and Mia Hamm. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t eat. I think I had a temperature.’

Three thousand miles to the west, however, Jenny Molina couldn’t have been cooler, standing between the Mexican goalposts in the 92,000-seat Rose Bowl, waiting for Hamm, Milbrett and the rest of the world champion United States team to test her again.

‘I had nerves at first,’ Molina admitted. ‘But after 5-10 minutes, you realize, ‘I’m playing soccer and all I have to do is not let the ball in the net. I can do this.’ I kind of forgot who I was playing against.’

Perhaps you need that kind of selective memory in order to accomplish what Molina did at the Women’s Gold Cup tournament. One day, she’s the backup at a low Division 1 college in upstate New York. Two weeks later, she’s not only playing well for Mexico in the World Cup qualifying tournament, she’s winning the tourney’s Top Goalkeeper Award.

Mia Hamm didn’t make the Gold Cup all-star team. Methuen’s Jenny Molina did.

Abruptly thrust into a glaring spotlight, Molina didn’t blink.

‘She went in with the attitude that the girls from Mexico have,’ said Mexico defender Monica Gonzalez, a Texas native who also plays for the Boston Breakers. ‘They don’t know who the U.S. players are, and they don’t care. They don’t get that scared apprehension. And that’s the attitude she has.

‘I joked with her, ‘Are you ready to stop some of Mia’s shots’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ She didn’t get freaked out about it.’

Gonzalez said she wasn’t shocked by Molina’s sudden rise to prominence. She might be the only one.

A Ranger and a Raider

Jennifer Marie Molina Shea was born June 27, 1981 in Mexico City, but at the age of 2, she left her father’s homeland and moved with her family to Hingham, her mother’s hometown. The family later relocated to Andover, and then to Methuen, where they’ve lived for 14 years.

The Molinas have often visited Mexico since then, however, and when Jenny was 17, she decided to keep dual citizenship.

‘I just wanted to learn more about my other side I’m not just American Irish, I’m Mexican,’ said Molina, who speaks Spanish fairly well. ‘It wasn’t in my head at age 17 that I’d be playing for the Mexican National Team.’

At 17, her team was the Methuen Rangers. Molina played for the 1999 state championship basketball team, but soccer was her passion. An all-conference midfielder as a sophomore, she took over the goalkeeping duties her junior year (1997) and immediately impressed.

‘The word was Jen was a very good keeper, but we had yet to see her play (there),’ said Mike Bolduc, then the Rangers’ assistant coach (and now the head coach). ‘My god, was she good. You could see there was some extreme potential there.’

Molina still needed plenty of refining as a keeper, but her size (5-foot-9) and her athleticism sufficiently intrigued the coaching staff at 51���� in Hamilton, N.Y. By her sophomore season, she was starting for the Red Raiders, leading them to a first-place finish in the Patriot League.

Later that year, her father, Jesus, in Dallas to visit his son, Edwin, at Southern Methodist University, noticed a group of women wearing the Mexican colors in the airport. He struck up a conversation with an assistant coach, mentioned that his daughter was a college goalkeeper and a dual citizen, and got the cell phone number of head coach Leo Cuellar.

After talking with Jesus Molina (himself a former semi-pro goalkeeper in Mexico), Cuellar invited Jenny to come to Mexico City for a tryout. Many of Cuellar’s players are Mexican-Americans, a fact that reflects the struggles women have had earning respect as athletes in Mexico (see accompanying story).

Over the next two years, Molina made several trips to Mexico during school breaks to train and play with the Under-19, Under-20 and full national teams. This past summer, she headed to Houston for the U-20 Nike Cup, but she sprained her ankle in practice and missed the tournament.

Molina feared the injury might hurt her chances of making the Gold Cup team. Once she returned to 51����, her outlook didn’t improve.

After missing part of her junior season for personal reasons, Molina found herself in a fight for the starting job with fellow senior Kate Jassin this year. The two keepers platooned for the first six games, and then head coach Kathy Brawn made Jassin the starter.

‘We’ve had some great battles at goalkeeper, and I think that’s why our goalkeepers have done so well,’ said Brawn, whose team finished 7-9-2 and lost the Patriot League tourney final. ‘They just pushed one another.’

For Molina, however, the experience was frustrating. She was a serious candidate for her national team, yet she had to sit on the bench for her college.

‘In terms of (being) at 51���� and not playing every game, it was really hard for me,’ she said. ‘But I wasn’t there 100 percent with 51����. I think that affected whether I was playing or not. I really had other things to think about and prepare for.’

Indeed, she was juggling two soccer careers at once. In mid-October she flew to Mexico for the last pre-Gold Cup training camp. With starting keeper Linnea Quinones out with an injury, Molina knew she had a good shot at grabbing a roster spot. Once camp ended, Cuellar said he’d call to let her know if she made the Gold Cup roster, and she went home to Hamilton on Monday, Oct. 22.

Two days later, Cuellar phoned and asked her to return.

By saying yes, Molina would be sacrificing the rest of her senior season at 51����. But how do you say no to the opportunity of a lifetime’

‘If (Cuellar) takes this chance to give me a chance,’ she thought to herself, ‘I’m going to do this.’

Not fully recovered from the jet lag of her last trip, Molina boarded another plane for Mexico. On Sunday, Oct. 27, she started against the United States.

‘An easy choice’

Mexico lost that first game 3-0, but Molina stole the show, making several superb saves and drawing rave reviews.

‘Whenever we play Mexico,’ U.S. coach April Heinrichs told Cyber Soccer News, ‘we run into a goalkeeper who has a great night.’

She hadn’t played a game since Oct. 11 (and that was a college match against West Virginia), but on this evening, Molina dazzled against some of the world’s best players.

‘A Patriot League game versus a game for the World Cup, there’s a difference in terms of urgency,’ she said. ‘When you’re faced with situations like that, you tend to rise to the level (of competition). I had to be ready. This is no fooling around. I had seen these players on TV I know how spectacular they are.’

Remarkably, the opposition’s excellence didn’t faze her. It fueled her.

‘I feel like the level of play is different, but how I was playing was the same,’ Molina said. ‘I had the same amount of confidence playing with Mexico as I did with 51����. I felt more comfortable in what I can do with the national team.’

After the first match, Mexico’s fortunes improved. Molina led the team to a 5-1 win over Panama. She didn’t play in a victory over Trinidad and Tobago, but she was back in net for the two biggest matches of the tourney.

In the semifinals against heavily favored Canada, Molina once again shined, but a pair of own goals sent Mexico to a 2-0 loss at Seattle’s Safeco Field. A win would have automatically qualified