Growing up in a household with a father who played college soccer, Olivia Sipsock’s future was set in stone from a young age.
“I always looked up to him, and my goal was to always end up at a D-I [soccer] program,” she said.
Sipsock’s tenure on the pitch got off to a blazing start.
At Medina High School in Medina, Ohio, she led her team to the state Final Four as a freshman, before being named a team captain as a sophomore. Sipsock followed that up by earning All-America, All-Central Region, All-Ohio First Team and Greater Cleveland Conference First Team honors along with being named the Medina County Gazette’s Most Valuable Player in her junior season.
In her senior year, she was the Ohio Division I Player of the Year and earned United Soccer Coaches All-America and All-Region honors, officially ranking as the No. 15 player in the state and ending her high school career with 136 points on 62 goals and 32 assists — marks that placed her third in school history.
While Sipsock went on numerous visits to college campuses throughout her recruitment, there was one thing in particular that sold her on the idea of continuing her career at Eastern Michigan University.
“The thing that led me towards Eastern was just the community and the girls on the team — I felt at home when I came here and met everyone,” she said.
First foray in Ypsilanti
Sipsock’s tenure at Eastern Michigan in the fall of 2023 didn’t start seamlessly. After not starting the opening six games, the true freshman conducted some introspection that ultimately changed the course of her career.
“In high school soccer, it was kind of like my spot was there; there was really no competition. But when you come to college, there’s competition in your spot, and I feel like that was something I had to adjust for,” she said.
Sipsock eventually earned the starting spot she was looking for — starting the final 13 games of the campaign for the Eagles. The results on the pitch came almost instantly.
Five goals and 12 points followed for the Ohio native, securing her spot on the Mid-American Conference All-Freshman Team that year and setting the groundwork for one of the most decorated careers Eastern Michigan’s soccer program has ever seen.
Sipsock credits her early career hurdles for subsequently fueling her eventual rise to stardom.
“Work ethic is everything. Even if someone’s not in your spot, you need to treat it as there’s always competition behind you because it’ll make you work harder in the end,” she said.
Playing under Taylor Clarke
After posting a 1-12-6 record during the 2023 season and the retirement of longtime Eagles head coach Scott Hall, Eastern Michigan hired Taylor Clarke, who came over from NCAA Division III’s Carroll University.
“When he came in, our energy as a whole kind of shifted, and we were really excited about soccer, because I think we were kind of defeated after my freshman year,” Sipsock said.
Sipsock played the wing during her freshman year under Hall but transitioned back into her natural role as a striker once Clarke’s tenure began in 2024. An uptick in performance for the team quickly followed.
While Sipsock herself posted identical stats to her freshman campaign — five goals, two assists, and 12 points total — the program improved their winning percentage from .211 to .528 in Clarke’s first year at the helm, narrowly missing out on the postseason MAC tournament.
Sipsock cites another pivotal moment in her Eastern Michigan tenure being the program’s exit meetings at the conclusion of her sophomore year.
“The coaches told me what I needed to do, what I needed to work on to earn my spot on the team again,” she said.
“For the whole summer, I got my mindset right, I got my fitness up, I worked on my touches, and I really honed in on focusing on soccer as a whole and my mindset,” Sipsock added.
Standout season in 2025
"I think you're going to see a player who is hungry to achieve even more, a player who had a really good offseason, and is now really looking to step up and have a level of accountability in terms of scoring goals for the team, creating chances, assists, you name it. You're going to see a player who's hungry to do all those things," said Clarke about his star striker prior to the start of the 2025 season.
While it took three matches for Sipsock to find the back of the net for the first time in the new campaign; once she did, she never looked back.
Sipsock posted a career-high in points, goals, shots, shots on goal and game winners throughout the course of this fall, being named to the All-MAC Second Team while also earning All-MAC academic honors for the second consecutive season.
Despite upping her level of play and the additional accolades that followed, Sipsock and the Eagles finished just shy of the MAC tournament for the second straight season — placing seventh in the conference.
Heading into her final season in 2026, that is a fact that Sipsock aims to change.
“Everyone in my class, we’ve been striving to make the tournament and win a championship. But I think it's the little minute details — that’s what’s really good about having the spring, because we get to focus on all those details that we lacked not making the tournament,” she said.
With her name starting to show up on all-time program leaderboards approaching her senior year, Sipsock, a biology major, emphasized that her plans post-graduation have not changed.
“You never know what your future holds. But I came to school for school, I’m studying biology, and my end goal is something in the medical field, specifically physician’s assistant. So my plan is to apply to PA grad school and if I get in, that will be my pathway. If not, maybe semi-pro, pro [soccer],” she said.
