Sunshine Fontes was in the middle of describing her role as a veteran player for the No. 1-ranked UCLA women’s soccer team when she had to correct herself.

“I mean, I’m not really a veteran since I’ve only played one full season, technically,” the 2019 Pearl City alumna said in a phone interview Tuesday. “But it’s just nice to play a bigger role on this team.”

It’s taken three years, but Fontes finally feels like she’s getting the full college experience at UCLA. A knee injury suffered in the OIA playoffs of her senior year of high school derailed her freshman season in Los Angeles.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out 2020.

Fontes grinded her way through countless hours of rehab for more than two years to finally get medically cleared to play, but even then, when she finally got to put on the blue and gold, there still weren’t any fans in the stands to watch.

Only now, in her fourth year of college, with the end closer than the beginning, can she say things are finally what she hoped they would be when she first decided to attend UCLA.

“Even last fall, I played, but I didn’t play as much as I would have liked. So this year, finally being able to step up into that leadership role is just so nice to play a bigger role for this team,” Fontes said. “This team is special and I’m so excited to see what we can accomplish this year.”

Fontes has made the most of her expanded role, leading the team with six goals in nine matches.

She recorded her first hat trick in college in a 6-0 win over Cal State Northridge and followed it up with the only goal scored in a 1-0 victory over Santa Clara, which won a national championship in the spring of 2021.

UCLA is off to a 9-0 start but has been in this position before. In the spring of 2021, the Bruins started 8-0 and had just one loss entering the NCAA Tournament, when they were beat by Clemson in the second round in a shootout.

Then in the fall, UCLA took a 16-0-3 record into the NCAA Tournament only to lose 1-0 to UC Irvine in a shocking first-round upset.

“The main thing (this year) is making sure we show up every game and not think we’re just going to walk by teams like we probably thought we were going to last year,” Fontes said. “Now, (the UC Irvine loss) is not a big deal to talk about. When it happened it was a touchy subject, but we just don’t want that to happen again.”

The two-time Honolulu Star-Advertiser Player of the Year remains the all-time leading scorer for the U.S. Under-17 National Team with 24 goals and was a top-level recruit for the Bruins when she tore her ACL while scoring a goal in the OIA semifinals against Moanalua.

It cost her her freshman season at UCLA, but didn’t stop her from putting in the work — before, during, and after practice — to rehab her way back to health.

She was almost there when an athletic trainer told her to go home for spring break and then she would get tested when she got back to clear her to play.

The only problem was, it was months before she made it back to campus.

“Little did we know a pandemic was going to hit,” Fontes said. “When I was home I didn’t have all the weights, all the things I needed to have, to do that rehab, and that delayed the process for sure.”

Right after she was cleared to play a full 25 months after initially suffering the injury, she came in as a reserve for 22 minutes in a win over Pepperdine.

A week later, on a chilly Friday night with nobody in the stands at Wallis Annenberg Stadium on the UCLA campus, Fontes entered the home opener against BYU in the 67th minute. Six minutes later, she took a cross through the box and left-footed a ball far post for the game-winner, her very first goal as a Bruin.

“It was so awesome,” she said. “I looked over to our bench and my team was celebrating and all of the emotions hit me. It was a dream come true. Being able to play for my dream school and play with my best friends and see how happy they were for me was crazy.”

A little more than a year and a half later, Fontes suddenly has big decisions to make. She will finish her undergraduate program in December and has two more years of eligibility, but would need to enroll in a graduate program.

She feels like her college career is just getting started as it also might be about to end.

“Just trying to take it all in while I can,” Fontes said. “Savor every moment I guess, because this could be my last quarter, I don’t know.”

Whatever happens, playing soccer at UCLA was what she always wanted to do as a kid growing up, and she’s been able to do that, through hard work, despite all of the obstacles thrown her way.

“Just being surrounded by so many high-level athletes is what I’ll remember,” Fontes said. “The facilities are amazing — you walk around and see the awesome campus, it’s just beautiful here.

“You’re kind of just surrounded by greatness everyday. It’s not a place where you can be complacent, which is like the coolest part about it. You’re always being pushed to be better.”

Sunshine Fontes

School: UCLA

Class: Senior

Height: 5-foot-4

Position: Forward

High school: Pearl City (2019)