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Steamboat Springs — About the only thing Steamboat Springs and St. Charles, Mo., seem to have in common is that a river runs through both cities, and with all due respect to the roaring spring Yampa, the muddy Missouri River makes even that similarity a distant one.

Miranda Schrock, a Steamboat Springs senior, may have found another similarity - one significant enough to draw her from the mountains to beyond the prairie.

She found hockey there. Schrock last week accepted a scholarship to play hockey at Lindenwood University in St. Charles.

"I'm very excited," Schrock said. "It took me awhile to find schools where I could enjoy where it was, the environment it was in, the people and the diversity. Everything came into play."

Earning a ticket to Lindenwood was no small job for Schrock. With her father, she created a 30-minute clips tape to shop around to prospective schools. She said the most important step might have been making the cut on the Steamboat Springs High School hockey team.

Practicing and playing against a roster of bigger and stronger players every day was a tremendous advantage, one she missed out on as a junior when she tried out but didn't make the team.

"It was a lot tougher. It was quite the challenge," Schrock said. "It helped a lot. They played at a higher level, and I was pushed to get up to that.

"All the guys I've known my whole life, so they were really supportive."

Lindenwood, a private university 30 minutes from St. Louis, has just more than 6,000 undergraduate students but offers 40 varsity sports for men and women.

Eric Blase, the Steamboat Springs Youth Hockey Association's director of hockey, helped turn Schrock on to the school nearly 900 miles from her hometown.

"I had seen Miranda skate a couple times, and I thought she'd be a good fit at Lindenwood," said Blase, who played at Lindenwood while in college. "In terms of her talent level and the advantages she has, being that she has played with boys for the last five or six years, that can translate into success at the college level."

The process might not be over yet, however. Schrock is now well into soccer practice at Steamboat Springs High School. It's another sport she said she would consider playing at Lindenwood.

Overlapping schedules rule out participating in both. While she said she's committed to the school, she may take the rest of the spring to make up her mind about what exactly will await her in Missouri.

"They are about equal," Schrock said about her affection for the two sports. "When the coach gave me the scholarship, he told me if I were to switch to soccer, they wouldn't take it away."