T.J. Berka, Staff Writer
Posted: 04/14/2009 11:51:24 PM PDT

YUCAIPA - The goal for most freshmen in varsity athletics is to get some
playing time, make a contribution and generally put up with whatever
pranks concocted by their upperclassmen teammates.

Not for Kodi Lavrusky. Her goal was to score goals - lots of them - for
the Yucaipa girls soccer team.

Lavrusky did that and then some by scoring a school-record 44 goals
while providing the offensive firepower for a team that advanced to the
CIF-SS semifinals for the first time in school history.

"I felt I could come in and do pretty well, but I didn’t think I would
score 44 goals or anything like that," Lavrusky said. "I wanted to break
a school record, but I didn’t expect to."

Lavrusky took the normal freshman learning curve and demolished that by
stepping in on a veteran team and making an indelible mark on the
2008-09 Citrus Belt League champions.

That mark is why Lavrusky is the All-Sun Girls Soccer Player of the
Year.

"You would never guess that she was a freshman by the way she plays,"
Yucaipa girls soccer coach Sheila Huggins said. "She’s just so calm,
relaxed and focused. She knows what she has to do and doesn’t get
rattled."

The only real signs of Lavrusky’s youth are her quiet personality and
having to ride the bus every day from Yucaipa’s freshman campus to the
high school to join teammates for practice and games. That and the
mayonnaise-covered hair she had to deal with as part of a freshman
initiation ritual earlier in the season.

"I maybe heard her say five words all year to me in practice," Huggins
said. "She came out, worked hard and did her job. Her older teammates
saw that and they accepted her pretty quickly."

Lavrusky scored five goals in a game in both of Yucaipa’s meetings with
Miller and scored all four goals in the Thunderbirds’ second-round, 4-0
playoff victory over Burbank.

Lavrusky, in fact, scored six of Yucaipa’s seven playoff goals, not bad
for someone who was contemplating not playing soccer this year.

The 5-foot-8 Lavrusky also is a good basketball player, to the point
where Huggins was worried she would choose that sport over soccer,
especially after Lavrusky spent this past summer playing summer league
with the Yucaipa girls basketball team. But soccer won out for a pretty
simple reason.

"I just enjoy soccer more," Lavrusky said. "People have told me that I’m
good at basketball and I could have had fun playing basketball, but I
just have more fun playing soccer. Plus, I think I’m better at soccer
anyway."

Lavrusky giving up basketball turned out to be a pretty big deal for the
Thunderbirds. Yucaipa, fresh off a league title the year before, had a
potent veteran corps coming back in senior midfielder and SMU signee
Kellie Bohner, senior defenseman April Moreno and senior forwards Amanda
Simpson and Braelyn Tirella.

That corps quickly was whittled down as Simpson moved to goalkeeper
while Bohner and Moreno were injured - Bohner’s injury knocked her out
for the season - Tirella was left looking for help. Lavrusky happily
provided it.

"That was tough, but I knew that everyone on the team had to step up,"
Lavrusky said. "Those girls were a big part of the team and I wish I
could have played with them, but I knew that we had to play better and
rally around them."

Lavrusky and Tirella developed a close bond to do just that. The senior
embraced the freshman right away, moved to midfield and set up Lavrusky
with many of her 44 goals. She earned first-team All-Sun honors.

Tirella also took Lavrusky under her wing off the field and helped the
freshman acclimate to high school. When Lavrusky talked in practice, it
almost always was to Tirella.

"She was basically like a big sister to me," Lavrusky said. "Whenever I
needed a laugh or had a question, Braelyn was there for me. It really
helped me out a lot."

Tirella assisted on Lavrusky’s record-setting goal against Carter on
Feb. 10 and held back on her own goal-scoring opportunity to get
Lavrusky in the history books.

"Braelyn could have easily scored, but she wanted Kodi to get the record
right then," Huggins said. "The whole team did. Kodi was an awesome
player and an awesome teammate and we were really happy to have her
playing with us."