Practicing with someone three years older than her helped Marissa prepare well ahead of time for each stage of her career and gave her the confidence that she could compete with anyone. In no instance were these traits more evident than at the end of her freshman season of high school.
Marissa had played on her Severna Park’s JV team all year, but for the state playoffs, most of the JV team joined the Varsity team to provide depth and support. While the experience mainly involved observation from the bench for almost all of the young JV players, Marissa found herself taking the field in a critical semifinal match against her school’s bitter rival, South River.
“It was the end of my senior season, and I was super focused on the game, on ending my high school career on a good note,” Hannah said. “But all of a sudden, halfway through the game, I saw Marissa subbing in and I forgot all that because I realized it was the first time we’d ever played with each other in a real game. Then, she scored two goals to win us the game and send us to the finals, and I just lost it.”
The seniors all around her on the field naturally didn’t faze Marissa, because, after all, she trained with one every day at home.
TAKING HER GAME TO COLLEGE
In Marissa’s first season at Harvard, her sister’s guiding hand once again kept her on track as she had a tough start to her college career.
“I realized even before the season started that the college game was very different from anything I’d played before,” Balleza said. “In high school, you could just run and shoot, but in college, you couldn’t do that anymore. You needed to learn how to control your body, perfect your technique.”
The reminders that she needed to improve did not just come from within, however.
“Coach told me just a few weeks into preseason practice, ‘You’re lazy on defense,’” Balleza recalled. “That a was a big wake up call for me, and it was something that nobody wants to hear, but you kind of have to.”
With the support of her sister, then a senior at Cornell and captain of its field hockey team, Marissa once again made the adjustments needed to succeed.
“Playing with my sister and learning from her has helped me in ways that I’m not sure many other things could,” Balleza said. “She’s been such a big part of my life and helping me develop my skills and confidence.”
Even though Hannah now lives in Chicago, she still made it out to six of Marissa’s games in Cambridge this past season. The consistent support from her sister translated into consistent performance for Marissa on the field, as she netted 13 goals as a junior, good for the fourth-highest single-season scoring haul in Harvard history.
Combined with her 12 goals from freshman season and nine from sophomore year, Marissa now sits second on the Crimson all-time goal-scoring list with 34. Perhaps the more important number, however, is eight—the number of game-winning scores Marissa has, which ranks third-all time at Harvard.
As she heads into her senior season with a handful of school records in reach, Marissa can count on the fact that she’s not going to be chasing them alone. For the Ballezas, it has been a family affair all along.
—Staff writer George Hu can be reached at yianshenhu@college.harvard.edu