BATON ROUGE — LSU head soccer coach Brian Lee announced the signing of a pair of highly-decorated high school seniors to National Letters of Intent on Thursday as the duo is set to join standout transfer Sarah Benson on the squad for the 2007 season.
The high school recruits from the Class of 2007 who have decided to continue their already stellar soccer careers at LSU are in-state prospect Nazily Alcoser of Kenner, La., and Canadian standout Taryne Boudreau of Sherwood Park, Alberta.
“The goal for this class was to tweak our solid nucleus of returning players with two or three elite-level recruits, and I give the coaching staff an A+,” Lee said. “Bringing in elite talent is a prerequisite to winning SEC championships, and in three recruiting cycles we’ve put ourselves in a position to achieve great things in the very near future.
“Debbie (Hensley) and Daniel (Brizard) are relentless on the recruiting trail and have done an outstanding job in every aspect of recruiting again in 2007. They are certainly as committed and driven as I am to making LSU the premier soccer program in the SEC.”
Alcoser comes to LSU from Archbishop Chapelle High School where she has earned a pair of first-team all-metro and all-district selections under the tutelage of head coach Jose Ferran. Alcoser is a three-time member of the Louisiana State Olympic Developmental Program Team, while also leading the New Orleans Soccer Academy to two club state titles in her career.
“We want to have the state’s top high school seniors continue their careers here at LSU each year,” Lee said. “We feel like Naz is certainly among the top two or three seniors this year, and we’re excited about her joining our program. We were able to get to know her through our summer camps and are pleased with her decision to attend LSU.”
Boudreau is without a doubt one of the top international recruits for the Class of 2007 as he has represented her country as a member of the U-20 Canadian National Team for more than a year. She saw action in the recent FIFA U-20 Women’s World Championships in Moscow, Russia, this past summer while earning a pair of starts against Finland and Nigeria.
Boudreau, who has been involved with Canada’s national development program for years while competing for the U-18, U-16 and U-15 national teams, also made appearances in seven international friendlies in preparation for the World Championships against such nations as Australia, China, Finland and Mexico.
The product of McNally Composite High School in her hometown of Sherwood Park, Alberta, has also experienced great success at the club level as she led the Sherwood Park Rangers to the gold medal at the U-16 Canadian Club National Championships in 2003. She also won a silver medal at the 2006 Canada Summer Games as a member of her Alberta Provincial All-Star Team.
“We feel like Taryne is the No. 1 prospect in Canada for 2007, and we’re very excited that she made the decision to join us here at LSU,” Lee said. “We recruit Canada very closely and have been impressed with the job their national staff has done in player development in recent years. Taryne has certainly benefited from her experience with the national team.”
Lee’s signing of Alcoser and Boudreau comes on the heels of a pair of recruiting classes ranked among the very best in the country in his first two seasons in Baton Rouge. He quickly signed the nation’s 26th-ranked class in 2005, while LSU’s signing class a year ago ranked No. 7 nationally and tops in the SEC. Both classes finished the signing period ranked atop the SEC West.
Lee said that he is excited about what is in store for the Tigers in the 2007 season as a total of 13 players return with starting experience in the SEC, including such standouts as midfielder and All-SEC performer Melissa Clarke and defender Veronica Godbolt who were forced to sit out a season ago due to injury.
“I am confident that we will once again rank among the very best classes in the SEC and the country when all is said and done and our group of additional players is finalized,” Lee said. “We have a lot of work to do between now and Aug. 31, but we can’t wait to get our new additions together with the returning players and get started in the fall.”