1. Ohio junior Merritt killed in fall at hotel

• by Soccer America , Mar 23, 2007

Sarah Merritt, a 20-year-old member of the Ohio University soccer team, died while on spring break in Hilton Head Island, S.C., after she fell from a fifth-floor balcony at her hotel.

According to witnesses, Sarah Merritt was climbing from the exterior balcony of one room to another at the Comfort Inn & Suites when she fell about 60 feet on Wednesday. She was on vacation with friends.

Merritt was a junior at Ohio, for which she played 49 games in three years. She was a high school all-American at Tippecanoe High in Tipp City, Ohio, where she holds the career scoring record (89 goals).

"She was the type of kid who walked into the room and the lit the place up with her smile," Tippecanoe High School principal Chuck Wray told the Island Packet.