Adopted from China, Santiago Created Life Blazing Nets
By Jim McCurdy
IRVING, Texas – Lia Santiago is always bouncing around, full of energy, displaying a genuine zest for life. It's a life that was altered when she was taken away from her native China homeland, and brought to North Texas.
A freshman forward on Dallas College North Lake women's soccer team, Santiago was adopted by Puerto Rican-born parents at eight months old.
"I don't know much about my background," Santiago said. "I really don't know anything. When a lot of people hear about it, they kind of feel, not sad, but kind of feel bad for me. But I try to put it in an aspect that it's not something to be sad about. I have a good life here. My parents are amazing. They're an amazing support system. The life that I have now is way better than a life I could've had in an orphanage.
"I do question sometimes like, 'Oh, where is my mom or dad now? What happened? Why did they give me up? But in the long run, my parents that I have now, they're my parents. They raised me, and they're amazing. I'm grateful. I guess I don't express it as much as I should because, you know, it's teenagers. I use my story as a positive way to show that even when some circumstances can be hard … as a child, I never wanted to tell people about my story because you never know if you'd get judged just because I was different, and Asian speaking Spanish, just getting looked at differently. But I think it's a cool thing now, and it's a part of me."
Her blood may be Chinese, but she speaks fluent Spanish. And her English is as clean as the shots she puts on frame in practice.
And yes, she knows how to put the ball in the back of the net.
Stories of Scoring
Santiago leads the Dallas Athletic Conference in goals (15) after scoring both in Friday night's 2-2 tie at Dallas College Eastfield. She ranks seventh in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III in goals, and is tied for 10th in points (32).
"I wouldn't say there's really a secret," Santiago said in her soft-toned voice. "I would say it's just, you know, hard work and dedication, and putting yourself in positions that can sometimes be uncomfortable, and just being there for your team. It's obviously not just me. The team works hard for me as well to get up there and score goals."
Santiago scored a goal, and had an assist in her first collegiate game. She scored both goals in the Blazers' first win of the season. That started a run of four consecutive games in which she scored. In a 3-3 tie with Southwestern Adventist University, the Chinese-born soccer scorer recorded her first college hat trick.
"Definitely, she's the best recruit that we have this year," Blazers 16-year head coach Adrian Gonzalez said. "For North Lake, she brings a very powerful offense for us. Having Lia out there, we feel like if we can bring the ball to her, she's going to finish, she's going to beat the defender. I would love to have another like her to have two."
In North Lake's first DAC win, she scored a goal, and had two assists. That started another four-game streak in which she scored at least one goal during a stretch in which the Blazers picked up two more ties, including a draw with Dallas College Cedar Valley, which garnered votes in the NJCAA Division III rankings the first half of the season. During that second four-game run, Santiago became the first player in the conference to score off two-time defending national champion and No. 2-ranked Dallas College Brookhaven off a free kick at home Oct. 3.
"I would say I did surprise myself in some occasions because as a freshman in college, you're not expected to have this big, great start to the season," Santiago said. "You work your way up, but I would say, it's not been super easy. Sometimes stats can show other things that's really going on in the game. We've had to put a lot of work into the games that it might look like it was really easy to pull off, but it wasn't. And some of the games we lost, it's hard, you know."
Prior to her goal in the Brookhaven game – one she banged off the post – the Bears had not allowed a goal in the first round of DAC play this season. That goal is the only one Brookhaven has allowed to an NJCAA Division III opponent this season.
"I felt really accomplished," Santiago said. "Not all the way, but I try to stay humble, and I just felt really, like, grateful that I could do that for my team. That's not just my success, that's something that everyone can see, like, 'Oh my God, Dallas College North Lake scored against Brookhaven.' It's not Lia scored against Brookhaven. It's just really great to help my team. We can just show that just because we've had bad history or if we weren't doing so well in the past that we can always do something well in the future."
In many ways, it was Lia scored off Brookhaven. After all, it was a free kick, where she had nothing but all of the opponents in front of her. Yet she cracked it off the post, and into the goal.
Goal No. 12 of the season.
Humility & Humor
Santiago thinks back to the second game of the season – a 6-0 loss at NJCAA Division I Blinn College – and remembers the feeling. It's for memories like that which helps keep her humility in check. But it also served as fuel to revive a bum season before it, in reality, got started.
"We tried to turn a little switch in our head that, 'This is not OK. We cannot do this anymore,'" she said.
North Lake responded the next game with a 2-0 win – one in which Santiago put both balls in the back of the net in a match she placed five shots on goal.
Blazers center midfielder Angelina Thonethao has known Santiago since the two played against each other in high school. Thonethao, who prepped at Trinity High School in Euless, has known the scoring potential of her college teammate since the two were on opposite benches while Santiago was scoring goals – 36 to be exact in her final two years – for L.D. Bell High School in Hurst. The two of them have taken on the role of being the outspoken spice lattes, if you will, to this North Lake soccer team.
"She's kind of a limelight to the team," Thonethao said. "Every time she comes to practice, it's me and her trying to conversate with everybody, and always making jokes. When that deflects onto the field, as a team, we want to work for each other, not only ourselves. And so, when she comes to practice, and has a positive attitude, I think that encourages our teammates to want to do better, and to help each other become successful. I think that's why Lia is so successful with us because we work together so well, and we encourage each other so well that we show that on and off the field."
Santiago, an As and Bs student in high school who wants to pursue a nursing degree, and her older sister, Meilin, were both adopted by Meiling Izquierdo and Juan Santiago out of China. Lia thinks it's ironic her Puerto Rican mother, given an Asian name, would adopt Chinese girls.
Life has a funny way of circling back.
For the Blazer scoring star, a lot of the fun on this improving North Lake team has run its spheres through her. And the infused energy she's brought to this team – one where wins have been hard to come by – is contagious, yet growing.
"The attitude is just amazing," Gonzalez said. "She fights, she trains, she's always encouraging the teammates. She's a leader out there. Even though we lose games sometimes, she's still very positive. Very, very positive, encouraging the girls. 'Girls, we can compete. Girls we can do this, keep it up. We can tie this game. Just give me the ball, send me the ball. I'll fight for that ball.' That's why I changed the system. 'Play Lia, and then we're going to support her.'
"It's so much fun to watch her play. Not just in games, but practices. She's hustling. Whatever we do. If we're doing drills to attack, doing drills for defense, if we're doing drills for fitness, she's hustling. I mean, this is a great asset that we have on the team this year."
Blazing to Different Shade
Thonethao remembers a time when the team was burrowed in a classroom in North Lake's F Building before a game when Santiago came in, and lit up everybody with her effervescent personality while the room was subdued.
"Everybody was just dialed in, ready for the game, and Lia just walks in and starts screaming at everybody, 'Hey guys, let's do this. Hey guys, let's try to do this. Hey guys, let's make this video. Hey guys, let's make this TikTok,'" Thonethao said, trying to hold back her laughs. "And we're all just sitting here, doing our homework, and we're like, 'Hello, who are you?'"
That thrust Lia into a new light. She Blazes to a different shade. It must be from all the caffeine and sugar she sucks down from her Vanilla Bean Frappuccino mix with chocolate chips and cookie crumble, draped with caramel drizzle on the sides of the cup, and topped with vanilla sweet cream foam and drizzle.
Oh, the colorful calories of Lia.
"Everybody just thinks she's just so silly and very outgoing and funny," Thonethao said. "When she walks into a room if it's dead quiet, and everyone's dialed in to homework or something, she's the de-stresser."
Santiago has so much reason to be bubbly. She's been afforded a good life in North Texas – one she may have never had the opportunity to live had she remained in China.
"She's very grateful about life," Gonzalez said. "You can tell that she's very grateful for having the opportunity to live here, go to college, study, have a family. She's a very grateful kid."
One who happens to be taking the Dallas Athletic Conference soccer world by storm when she's not slurping down Starbucks.