The Pitch to the Punch: Former UTEP soccer star Cortney Casey turning heads in UFC

EL PASO, Texas - Cortney Casey is a rising star on the MMA circuit, but first got her kicks in at UTEP as a member of the Miner women’s soccer team from 2005-2009. 

Casey scored 21 goals in 82 games for the Miners, and vividly remembers her time in the blue and orange. 

"El Paso doesn't have a professional team so we were it," says Casey of her time playing at UTEP. "I couldn't have been happier where I went, it was close to home."

"It's a family-oriented community I feel like," Casey says of El Paso. "They really take you in whether you were raised there, grew up there, or your just some outsider coming to play for UTEP."

In Casey’s final game on Senior Night, she suffered a tailbone injury that would derail further soccer plans.

But a chance workout at the end of her UTEP stint opened the door to a whole new sport. 

"One of my classmates asked me to go to the gym with him. And I thought we were going to go lift, but he took me to Sub-Grappling District which was a gym in El Paso at the time. They were doing Jiu-Jitsu there, and that's kinda how it started."

From there, she booked an amateur fight in MMA in Roswell, New Mexico, and worked her way to a professional TV contract with AXS TV.

Casey's four yellow cards in 2007 were being channeled to the ring! And at that point, a hobby turned into a career.

"All my life I thought I was going to be a professional athlete, that's all I wanted to be. I just didn't expect it was going to be in MMA."

Cortney’s record as fighter now stands 9-8, but a deep dive shows each loss has been to fighters in the Top 15 rankings. 

If you ask the former UTEP soccer star, she still has her eye on the goal. But this time, there will be no keeper in her way. 

"I definitely don't think I've reached my full potential. There's girls out there that are better than me, and I'm still reaching to get to their caliber."

"One day I'm going to meet it. And that's going to be it."