Lauren Naeser '24 Recruiting Profile

My passion for soccer started around six years old when I was first introduced to soccer by playing on an all-boys team for my first three years.   This early experience taught me from Day 1 to be persistent, tough, aggressive, to have fun when playing, and how to work harder to stand-out when I might be otherwise overlooked.  In my last year I earned the team “Hustle Award”, and by then I had fallen in love with the sport!    

Over the years, I have developed a very strong work ethic and will out-work, out-study, and out-practice myself,  day in and day out.  I am naturally very driven, and always try to push myself above others, whether it is working on my shooting, my touches, or passing every day.   I am a student of this beautiful game, and always trying to learn, push myself, improve, and soak up coaching to help me grow.    

In the past year I have also begun studying exercise nutrition and have changed how I train, fuel, and recover to find my absolute best performance.   I have also just learned this past year to appreciate year-round strengthening, flexibility, dry-needling, and I now also strength train, stretch, or do yoga 6 days/week to keep me as strong and healthy as possible!   I have also suffered a few injuries and have used these experiences to build my mental toughness and resilience.  In 2017, I broke my leg straight through the growth plate playing select basketball.  I was out of  all sports for months, and during that time I learned how to push through mental blocks, studied many websites and tactics of the game, cheered on my team, and had to work extra-hard to return to soccer and stand out among other talented players.    My rehab to be 100% was over 9 months and I came back stronger and a better player than when I was injured!    From this experience I learned how to be mentally tough, and continue to work on attitude, mental toughness, and resilience to this day!

I started out playing every position on the field, thanks to great coaching early on...center-back, holding mid-field, attacking mid-field, and forward.  Over the last two years on my GA team I play almost exclusively Center-Forward and AM.    I have worked very hard to become a powerful and consistent striker, and am lethal from any range of shooting, pride myself on being a very precise striker and passer, with excellent ball control, first-touch, and power.  I consistently create opportunities for my teammates, almost never turn over the ball or get taken off the ball, and I have scored over 80% of my goals with my left foot this past year!    

A few  leadership traits that I possess are that I am very calm under pressure, I can work well with anyone, and my parents tell me making friends is my superpower, I love the friendships and  team support from soccer.   I consider myself very independent and driven and take full responsibility for my soccer career.   I watch all my own tape, make all my own soccer videos, email all coaches myself, and manage this site and my Twitter page myself.

Academically I push myself outside the box, and try new and more challenging classes, experiences, etc.  I ended my Freshman year with a weighted GPA of 4.0, and as a Sophomore I have taken AP classes and still have a weighted 4.0 GPA.  I was also inducted into the National Honor Society in May of 2022.    I have found my voice and grown into leadership roles at school as the elected student council leader for my Sophomore class, and lead in FBLA as well as various fundraisers including our recent success with Relay for Life where we worked together to beat our previous years goals.  I have also started volunteer work at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin where my youngest sister received care when she was very young to pay it forward to other kids!   I have applied for a 8 hour/week volunteer apprenticeship at Ascension Hospital for this summer as I am very interested in a career in Orthopedic/Sports Medicine.  

I truly love this sport and I want to find the right school for me academically and athletically where I can contribute to a team and advance my academic goals to study Sports Medicine.    I have a goal of playing Professional Soccer for as long as I can, and I am looking for a coach and team that can push me  to be the best player I can be.  I can thrive in any condition and situation I get thrown into, and I will add commitment, leadership, hard-work, and a winning record to my future college team. 

I am very excited for my last few years of high school and finding the right Soccer and Academic fit for College!