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Queens soccer star ready to kick off the island of Jamaica’s FIFA Women’s World Cup hopes

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Photo provided by the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association

The Jamaican National team in the FIFA Women’s World Cup is getting some help from a soccer star from Jamaica, Queens.

The team announced on Monday that their FIFA Women’s World Cup roster included Nicole McClure of Jamaica as a goalkeeper.

”The feeling is indescribable. I am incredibly honored and humbled by all of this. It’s truly a dream come true and such a surreal feeling. It hits me in spurts as to what I did for my country,” McClure said in a statement.

McClure, 29, who was born in Queens to Jamaican parents, played for the Auburndale Strikers and the East Meadow Shooting Stars in the Long Island Junior Soccer League. She also played in the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association’s (ENYYSA) Olympic Development Program for one year.

Last fall during the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football Women’s Championship, McClure played one game with the Jamaican Reggae Girlz team against Cuba in the group stage, shutting them out 9-0. In the tournament’s third-place match, she was called on as the goalkeeper in a penalty shootout during a tiebreaker after Jamaica and Panama tied 2-2. McClure made two do-or-die saves to win the shootout 4-2, and made history with the Reggae Girlz as the first Caribbean team to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.

With the Shooting Stars, McClure won the ENYYSA Girls-Under-15 State Open Cup final in 2005.

Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz will be playing in the upcoming Women’s World Cup taking places across nine venues in France. The tournament begins Friday, June 7.