Texeira relishing final season

Kelsey Texeira hopes one day soon that she will be human medicine. Studying to be a school psychologist, she aspires to provide relief against the problems that life has imposed upon kids she will encounter on the job.

She is scarcely aware that her soccer career at UC Irvine has contributed as much to the future professional shingle she will hang, as all the education and training she will accrue.

Her curse has become her blessing, but not before and until she deemed it so.

“It was just an epiphany,” the senior center defender said of releasing four previous seasons of injury, frustration and even tears. “I just decided to think that way. It was just a choice.”

The way Texeira chose to think was without regret, without trepidation and without concern for anything but the moment that was unfolding just then. Just now. The present was all she had, so she considered it folly to give that anything less than her full attention.

“I think I tried to savor [experiences] before, but it didn’t come as easily for me as it has this year,” said Texeira, the only senior starter on an 8-2 team that opened 8-1 to post the best start in program history. “I think when I just let go of the burden of not playing last year and the injury that took me out … I just said, you know, forget about it. Just go for it. Have a great year.

“And that has really helped my game. It just helped me.”

Texeira was committed to having a great year in 2015, her fourth year in the program and, as one of the team captains, her first as a full-time starter.

But just seven games in, what began as a contusion on her ankle was diagnosed as a blood clot. The regimen of blood-thinners used for treatment made physical contact too dangerous and sidelined her for the season.

She had redshirted her first season at UCI, when a broken shin sustained before enrolling forced a year of recovery and a difficult resumption of the intuitive feel for the game nurtured by a decade of dedication to the sport.

In between injuries, she played in 34 matches, including 14 starts, in two seasons, during which she did not contribute a goal or an assist.

“It was ups and downs,” Texeira said. “There were some frustrating years, some frustrating moments, but a lot of those helped mold the perspective I have now. I’ve just found the positives in that.”

Devastated to have lost what she thought could be her final year in the program, Texeira, who will graduate in December, said she became driven to use her remaining year of eligibility in 2016.

“I just decided that I wasn’t done playing,” she said. “I decided that I wasn’t going out that way.”

With this inspiration, and the aforementioned attitude adjustment, Texeira scored twice in the first three games, both game-winners, the second in overtime. A 5-foot-10 aerial weapon on set pieces, she had two goals and three assists entering Thursday’s nonleague match at Santa Clara. And her aggressive, skilled, savvy play on the back line had helped the Anteaters produce five shutouts and outscore teams, 22-5.

UCI Coach Scott Juniper has said Texeira’s leadership may be her most valuable contribution.

“It’s been crazy,” Texeira said. “We’ve been winning a lot, which is nice. And the cohesion from the start with this group is just so different than any other team I’ve been part of here at Irvine. Everyone has just meshed and developed this really hard-working, hungry dynamic that has really contributed to our results.”

Texeira said her experience this season has helped her regain and identify with her passion for the game.

“I never gave up on [soccer],” she said. “There were times when my passion for it didn’t feel necessarily strong. But my love for the game has always been there. And now with this freeing perspective, I can really feel that passion.”

Texeira agreed that perhaps the soccer gods owed here some prosperity.

“It’s my time now, don’t you think?” she said with a smile. “But it’s all good. Even when it seemed bad, looking back on it, even that was good. It helped me get to where I am now and it was just my process. I think it was a huge opportunity for character development and an opportunity to grow as a soccer player.”

It is also a lesson, she said, that will inform her as she tackles future challenges in life.

“Right now, I’m choosing not to overthink it,” she said. “It has helped with soccer, definitely, but off the field it has helped every aspect of my life. It’s a good way to live.”

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Barry Faulkner covers colleges.

barry.faulkner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BarryFaulkner5