Assistant Coach Kelly Barbone (1st season)
High School: Highland Regional
College: Rutgers University-Camden (2016)
Major: Psychology
Former Rutgers University-Camden letterwinner Kelly Barbone begins the next phase of her Scarlet Raptor career as a first-year assistant with the women’s soccer program. She will serve as the women’s soccer alumni director in addition to her coaching duties.
Few athletes have overcome more adversity than Barbone saw in her Rutgers-Camden women’s soccer career. An All-New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Honorable Mention player as a freshman defender in 2011, Barbone missed the entire 2012 and 2013 seasons while twice dealing with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. She made a triumphant return in 2014, starting all 18 of the team’s games. That season gave her starts in all 33 of the Rutgers-Camden games during her first two seasons over a four-year injury-marred span.
As a senior in 2015, Barbone made the switch from the back to forward. She was enjoying a terrific final season as one of the Scarlet Raptors’ top offensive threats before her campaign was again cut short by an ACL injury, forcing her to miss a month of action. Instead of ending her career on the sidelines, Barbone worked diligently to return, starting the Scarlet Raptors’ final three games and finishing second on the team in scoring. She finished the season collecting four goals and one assist for nine points in her eight games.
Barbone made a triumphant return in the Raptors’ 2015 Senior Day game, notching the game-tying goal early in the second half to spark Rutgers-Camden to a 2-1 comeback victory over Rutgers-Newark (Oct. 24). Prior to her injury, she scored her first collegiate goal in a 2-1 loss against Mount St. Mary (Sept. 12) at the Drew University Fall Fest. She notched her first assist the next day at the Fall Fest as the Raptors defeated host Drew, 3-2.
The senior forward scored both Raptor goals in a 2-0 victory over Mt. St. Vincent (Sept. 16), giving her the lone game-winning goal of her 41-game career.
Barbone’s perseverance was rewarded at the 2016 Rutgers-Camden Athletic Awards Banquet, when she received the Borda-Sheehan Award as the team’s Most Dedicated Player.
As a four-year soccer letterwinner at Highland Regional High School, Barbone captured Tri-County Conference Royal Division Second Team honors as a sophomore (2008) and a junior (2009). She earned Tri-County Royal Honorable Mention as a senior. An Honor Roll student at Highland Regional, she also added All-Group 3 First Team honors from the
Courier-Post newspaper during her junior season.
A two-time NJAC Academic Honorable Mention student, in addition to her athletic accomplishments, Barbone was a Dean’s List student at Rutgers-Camden. She graduated in May, 2016, with a Psychology degree.
