Aggie defender making the most of career at USU
Being a defender, she doesn’t have killer stats.
But ask anybody on this season’s Utah State University women’s soccer team and they will tell you senior Aggie Lyndy Goodsell is one of the biggest pieces to the solid foundation of the team.
“She’s just [an example of] stability,” said USU forward and best friend Brigid Turner. “She’s always positive. She’s always there, always gets back, always working hard. Rarely ever do [attackers] get by her. She’s saved us so many times from goals. It’s a great comfort to have her [as a defender] back there.”
In her three plus years as an Aggie, Goodsell has scored only one goal. But, of course, a defender’s job is to defend.
Reliability and quickness are Goodsell’s game, key to being able to stop speedy opposing team forwards from slipping a ball into the Aggie-guarded net.
In 2001, she started all 18 games and this season has only been absent once.
In the second half against the University of California Irvine Oct. 6, Goodsell took a knee to her head and suffered a mild concussion. USU doctors and trainers advised her to take it easy and sit out the next match at UC Riverside, a game the Aggies lost 3-2.
“That was a bummer [when Goodsell sat out against Riverside],” Turner said. “I think that did affect us in the defense.”
Goodsell, who grew up in Newton, Utah, and went to Sky View High School, said she never thought about competing at the next level, but her athletic ability attracted USU coaches to give her a shot on the team.
“USU is the only school that recruited me,” she said. “In high school, I didn’t think twice about playing in college. It never even crossed my mind. [But] they recruited me. So I decided to check it out and see how I liked it, and at least try it for a year, and I really loved it. So I stayed.”
And she said the experience has been well worth it because the team gets along very well on and off the field, even making two trips to the Goodsell household for dinner this season.
“Our team doesn’t get a home-cooked meal,” Goodsell said. “We go on the road four days a week and eat out at restaurants. So, it’s just nice for the team to have home-cookin’. And my mom loves to have them out.”
Goodsell said her role on the team has changed a lot since she arrived in 1999.
“I think I was really timid coming in,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of confidence. I didn’t really trust myself on the ball. But I think the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found that it’s important to be confident all the time.”
That confidence has been earned by herself as well as pushed along by the coaching staff, she said.
It was also a vital aspect in having her teammates vote her and fellow seniors Turner and Megan Tanner as the three captains before the season started, Goodsell said.
“I think that’s one of the reasons the captains got voted in,” she said. “It’s because we have that confidence and we can talk to the freshmen in a mature way. We can talk to them and help them out. I like my role right now.”
Aggie Head Coach Jen Kennedy Croft said, “She has good leadership qualities. She’s had success in other arenas [and] that brings even more to our program. She’s also a motivator. She knows how to motivate people to do their best and I think that’s what this team needs.”
Her road to soccer stardom started when she was 6 years old playing in recreational leagues.
At age 12 she said coaches from other teams told her she needed to be playing competitive soccer because she was too good for the level she was competing in.
So, why did she choose soccer as her sport?
“I water skied growing up,” she said. “That was such an individual thing and it was hard [because when] I lost, I lost by myself. If I won, I won by myself. But with [soccer] I go down with the team and I win with the team. I like having teammates. I like seeing them at school and knowing that they’re behind me and I’m behind them.”
She said the experience of college and high school soccer has probably been too good to ever try playing professionally.
“It’s crossed my mind but I want to go to grad school [to study school counseling],” Goodsell said. “I don’t know. I don’t think that anything would compare to this. I kind of thought that once I left high school, but this was better. But I don’t think that semi-pro or anything would do it for me. I don’t think I’d ever be this tight with the team. I don’t think I’d ever be this happy. I think I’m done.”
-samhis@cc.usu.edu