PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland State women's soccer players Krystal de Ramos and Maxine Nagramada have been invited to participate in the Philippines Women's National Team ID Camp, which will be held at the El Cerrito Sports Park in Corona, Calif., March 23-27.
 
"Every time an athlete is invited to a national camp, it is an honor and a reflection of the hard work and time they have invested in their sport," PSU head coach Laura Schott said about her players' invitations. "Playing with full-team players and other high-level collegiate players will enhance their knowledge of the game and help them become better players."
 
The camp serves as a tool for the Philippines soccer federation to identify players playing in the United States who could be members of the nation team player pool from which the federation will select players to represent the Philippines in FIFA-sanctioned events or AFC-sanctioned competitions.
 
The Philippine Football Federation held its first ID camp in the United States in November 2012, which de Ramos attended while she was still then in high school. De Ramos' parents were both born and raised in the Philippines, with her dad born in Candelaria in the province of Quezon, Philippines, while her mom was born in Naga City in the Bicol region of the Philippines.
 
"Growing up as a second generation, participating in this camp in hopes to make my parents proud means so much to me," de Ramos said. "I am so grateful for this opportunity and what doors can be opened because of it. I'm looking forward to being able to play soccer with so many other girls who share the same culture as I do, as this hardly ever happens for me."
 
Nagramada, meanwhile, will be participating in the camp for the first time in a while, joining her roommate de Ramos. Nagramada is half-Filipino and half-Norwegian, and traces her heritage to the Philippines through her dad's parents, who were each born in the Philippines.
 
"I am really looking forward to meeting the other Filipino girls at the camp," Nagramada said. "Being half-Filipino and half-Norwegian, it's kind of confusing trying to figure out who you belong with. Last time I went to this camp, I met a lot of other Hapa girls (a person who is partially of Asian or Pacific Islander descent), and they made me feel at home. I never felt uncomfortable or like an outsider in any way."
 
The camp will serve as a good lead-in for de Ramos and Nagamada into to the Vikings' spring season, which will get underway in April. Both de Ramos and Nagramada will enter their second years in the Vikings' program in the fall, with de Ramos having made 16 appearances, including eight starts, as a freshman in 2015. Nagramada was also in line to start last fall, but suffered an injury in the first minutes of the Vikings' exhibition against Fraser Valley.