By Danny Contreras
Siena struck with 20 minutes on the clock; almost immediately, CCSU replied immediately through Morgan Santoro. Five minutes later, Julie Lavoie took her chance, and shot the ball on goal to seal the game for the Blue Devils.
“It was definitely, exhilarating. There’s a lot of excitement when you go out there in the field, there’s a lot of adrenaline, definitely. To have a result so quickly after we tied—so it was exciting,” said Lavoie.
It was only her second goal of the season. The CCSU junior is a native of Waterford, Connecticut; her accolades include 2010 Player of the Year by the “Norwich Bulletin” and the “New London Day,” and All-New England honors.
Standing at 5’2”, Lavoie is a forward with a low center of gravity and crazy speed. She is a naturally gifted attacker, constantly plugging herself between holes left by the opponent’s back-four.
Lavoie explained: “I’m usually thinking, before I get the ball, of where I am. Like if I’m in the attacking third of the field, you wanna look over your shoulder to see if you can turn. As a forward your mentality is always straight to goal.”
According to the official CCSU Blue Devils website, In 2012, Lavoie tallied five shots, three on goal, with one conversion in the game winning goal against Mt. St. Mary’s. She averaged a .600 shot on goal percentage in the season.
So far in 2013, Julie Lavoie has started in three games and scored 2 goals, one of them a game winning goal against Siena.
Her in-game psychology is based around her positioning, she explained: “I prefer the counter-attack because it works to my advantage; the defenders are backtracking while I’m running forward, so it works to my advantage.”
And it can be observed through her favorite player, the pacey striker from Brazil, Neymar, whom she looks to for inspiration.
“I recently got to go to the Portugal- Brazil game and had the chance to see him play, and he’s just a really quick player, explosive, fun to watch.”
Yet it can be also observed through her favorite team, Real Madrid; a team known for revolutionizing the counter-attack game over the last decade.
With only a year and a half left in her CCSU career, Lavoie is looking forward to improving her game through the tutelage of Coach D’Arcy.
“There are so many aspect of my game I could improve but personally, keeping possession and being able to pick out the passes, as oppose to always just moving forward,” she said on improving her game play.
Additionally, she has pretty ambitious but achievable objectives for the season:
“I would definitely like to make it to the NEC Tournament; I haven’t been since I’ve been here, and I think we have enough talent to make it there.”
When asked about how she would fare in another position, she replied, “I’m pretty happy at forward. Goalie frightens me, I’m pretty comfortable at forward.”
Lavoie would like to invite CCSU Students to the Blue Devils Soccer matches as they are on Friday nights, and Sunday afternoons.
Lavoie and the Blue Devils will face Robert Morris on October 4th, and Yale on October 7th. The CCSU Blue Devils are currently 2-7.
