Only 60 seconds after coming off the bench, two freshman forwards made a statement about their 2012 freshman class.
Fernanda Piña and Colby Maffei checked in at the 22nd minute of LSU’s soccer match against Memphis on Monday. Shortly after, Piña found Maffei from the corner and assisted Maffei in her first career goal, enhancing both players’ point columns.
LSU’s soccer team has a decorated freshman class filled with top-ranked recruits, high school scoring record holders and players with international experience.
The freshman class accounts for 41 percent of all offensive advances, accounting of 45 of the Tigers’ 108 shot attempts this season.
Of LSU’s nine goals this season, the freshmen scored five. The class also has four assists this season.
For the past few years, LSU soccer’s offense has dominated with players like Taryne Boudreau, who racked up 21 goals and 19 assists in her career, with 12 goals last season.
However, the new blood on the team brings skills that can, in time, make up for the loss of Boudreau, who graduated last season. This season, two freshmen are on top of the points column for the Tigers, which is made up of goals and assists. Piña and Heather Magee lead with five points a piece.
Forward Jade Kovacevic was a late addition to LSU after playing in the World Cup for Canada’s U-20 national team.
Kovacevic scored a goal in her first game with the Tigers on Sept. 2.
“It was the best feeling in the world,” Kovacevic said about the goal. “I actually couldn’t believe it was real. I’m new to the team, and I wanted to establish that I could play. … I wanted to give the team reassurance of my ability.”
Baton Rouge may be different from Kovacevic’s hometown of Georgetown, Ontario, but there are similarities that make her feel at home.
“I find that the people here are a lot like Canadians,” Kovacevic said. “Canadians are known for how nice they can be and the generosity, but the Southern hospitality here is amazing.”
Maffei and Magee both played with Olympic development teams prior to attending LSU, which gave them international experience as well as familiarity with the game.
“It’s competitive, so it puts you in the right mindset,” Maffei said. “It shows you that you have to compete every single practice and every single game for your position and your time to play.”
Magee scored her first career goal in the Aug. 31 game against Houston off of a turn and kick.
“I didn’t really expect that to be a goal,” Magee said.
Overall, the freshman class knows its depth as individuals.
“We’re a very strong freshman class with depth coming off the bench,” Maffei said. “We have a lot of different players in a lot of different positions to cover pretty much the whole field.”
LSU head coach Brian Lee sees the potential, but says that with inexperience at this level comes growing pains.
“They’re working really really hard,” Lee said. “We’re going through some growing pains with them, but none of them are character, effort or intensity related. It’s just a little bit of cleaning up things in front of goal.”
Early success has given the freshmen confidence, but the class knows there is more work to do.
“We already have points to our names, assists and goals from different people,” Maffei said. “Every time we do get on the field we do contribute a lot. It’s nice how we come in and we’re not only the freshman, but we make a difference too … We’re just a couple games from hitting our grooves and we’ll take off from there.”
