Years ago, Cindy Montel watched from the car as her young daughter hurried back and forth across the pitch while playing soccer in the Suffolk Youth Athletic Association. She brought snacks to Logan’s games to make sure the young girl kept up her energy.

Since her mother died of cancer nearly five years ago, Logan Montel has played without the constant encouragement of her mother at her games. But she never lost the motivation to do well for her mom.

That motivation — and a lot of talent — led to early courting by college coaches, resulting recently in Logan making a verbal commitment to play for Christopher Newport University.

“She used to watch me at SYAA,” Logan said of her mother. “I’m doing big things now.”

Montel has since played at higher levels for Beach Football Club out of Virginia Beach and even played overseas for the state team in the Olympic Development Program. She is a star junior midfielder at King’s Fork High School.

“All those different levels just made me want more,” she said.

Her father, Brady Montel, has helped make her soccer journey possible, supporting her and driving her all over the state of Virginia so she could pursue her love of soccer.

“I feel very fortunate that it’s turned into another path for her, and I’m excited to see what she can do at the college level,” he said.

More than a year ago, CNU coaches asked to meet with her after seeing her play in a tournament in Richmond.

She said when she first started looking at CNU, “I didn’t really like how small of a school it was.”

But she made a couple of overnight visits to the school, she said. “That’s when I started loving it more, and that’s when I started to look at the team more and start really falling in love with the players and the coaches.”

She was not without options in her college search.

“I was also looking at a (Division I) school in Louisiana called McNeese State University, and I was also getting looked at from other local schools,” Montel said. “I had been to a couple camps at (James Madison University) and a couple camps up in Maryland.”

What gave CNU the edge was “definitely how long they had stuck with me” and the relationship she had formed with the coaches there.

“One of our deals was I had to better my attitude in a positive way to work on being a leader, possibly at CNU, and they stuck with me over the year and helped me better my attitude, so I was kind of working for them already,” Montel said.

Academics and comfort drove her decision to go with a Division III school over a D1 school.

“I just feel more comfortable (playing) at CNU, because it’s close to home and the coaches and staff that I’ll be working with,” she said. “I like them a lot more than the other schools I looked at.”

Montel said she has not decided on a major, but is considering physical therapy and communications.

As a D-III school, Christopher Newport cannot offer athletic scholarships, but it has offered Montel a roster spot, and she also said the coach told her she is currently on the road to an academic scholarship.