Paula Petri made her first appearance for Borussia Moenchengladbach in the Frauen-Bundesliga at 16, won the 2. Bundesliga with the club in 2017/18, added eight more top-flight appearances in 2018/19, and played in Germany's national team setup between 2015 and 2017. Catharina von Drigalski spent six years with 1. FFC Frankfurt, collecting 40 appearances and more than 3,000 minutes for the second team in the 2. Bundesliga.
For the 2019/20 season, both joined Stony Brook University in New York - recruited by head coach Tobias Bischof, himself German, in his first season in charge of the Seawolves.
A championship in season one
That first season ended with the America East regular-season title and the conference tournament championship, a 14-5-1 record, and a place in the NCAA Division 1 tournament - where the run ended 1-3 against Penn State, then ranked #4 in the country. The team scored its first-ever goal in the national tournament on the way out.
Both Germans started all 21 games. Paula contributed six assists and a goal; Catharina, the team's corner specialist, added two assists. Both were named to the America East All-Rookie Team and the conference's Fall Honor Roll.
The kind of school this happens at
Stony Brook is a public research university of roughly 27,000 students - the largest public university in New York State by area, a member of the Association of American Universities since 2001, and classified R1 for very high research activity. Its admissions run selective: an acceptance rate around 44% and an SAT range of 1230-1440, with out-of-state cost of attendance above $43,000 a year - the number an athletic scholarship works against.
The pattern in this story repeats across women's college soccer: players with German top-two-division experience are exactly the profile D1 programs recruit, and the step can come straight after Abitur. Catharina and Paula told their story on our college road trip visit to Stony Brook.
From the Athletes USA archive - first published April 2021
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