WATSONVILLE -- As a kid, Priscilla Meza found solace on the soccer field.

Beginning in middle school, Meza would scurry from her home -- a den of drugs and domestic violence where a steady flow of strangers always seemed to be coming through the front door looking for their next fix. She would flee to the neighborhood field to kick the ball around or join a pick-up game with the boys. She'd stay out for a couple hours, until she cleared her head.

"Soccer got me away from all the drama of the house," said Meza, 22, a tall and lean midfielder who goes by her middle name rather than her birth name, Dulce. "It was pretty fun. It was a way to keep busy. The last thing I wanted to do was go home. I'd do anything to keep me from there."

In a twisted way, Meza owes the people who made her home life so terrible some thanks, because she has developed into an amazing soccer player.

Today, Meza will be on the same field as soccer icons Brandi Chastain and Tiffeny Milbrett and 29 other nationally established players who are vying to make the FC Gold Pride -- the Bay Area's team in the newly formed Women's Professional Soccer league.

Meza shined at a two-day tryout in mid-February that drew 40 players, most with playing resumes much longer than her own. She was one of seven players invited to training camp and the only one without NCAA experience.