STILL WORTH WATCHING : Five Years Later, These Athletes Are Fulfilling Their Early Promise : Annabel Dostal

Somewhere along the road that leads a soccer prodigy to stardom, Dostal plans to turn off the path and see what else the world has to offer.

Dostal, a senior forward at Loara High, said that she expects her life will be very different in 10 years.

“I think I will still be playing soccer, but probably just for the fun of it,” she said. “I want to travel so bad. Everywhere.”

Dostal has always tended toward the adventurous--in 1990, she played for a boys’ 13-and-under club team because the girls’ team she helped to the Western Regional 12-and-under championship disbanded the year before.

She has also reached respectable levels in the Olympic Development Program, for which she twice was invited to Western Regional camps.

At age 15, Dostal took a break from club soccer and discovered other interests.

“I was pretty burned out on the whole system. It just got repetitive. That’s when I got interested in swimming and going to the beach,” she said.

But Dostal still enjoys playing for Loara and she has been an All-Empire League second-team selection the past two seasons.