BATON ROUGE – Natalia Gomez-Junco not only proved to be one of the SEC’s leading midfielders with her performance on the field in 2015, but she also showed great leadership for the Tigers off the field with her community service efforts as she was named to the SEC Community Service Team for women’s soccer Thursday morning.
Gomez-Junco has been selected to the SEC Community Service Team for the first time in her collegiate career as one of 14 women’s soccer players honored Thursday morning by the league office.
A senior from Monterrey, Mexico, Gomez-Junco has been a leader of LSU Soccer’s community service efforts since arriving on campus in the spring of 2013. Among her favorite activities are working with local children to improve their soccer skills while conducting weekly clinics with a local Under-11 team with the Baton Rouge Soccer Association.
She has brightened the day of the kids of Baton Rouge while making frequent visits with her teammates to Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital, while even taking part in a recent OLOL “No Mo Chemo” party while spending time with the kids in the hospital.
Gomez-Junco is an annual participant in LSU’s signature community service events such as the Halloween BOOzar, where she trick-or-treats and plays games with kids at the Carl Maddox Field House, and Thanksgiving with the Tigers, in which she joins the team providing Thanksgiving meals to underprivileged families in Baton Rouge.
Gomez-Junco has served as a mentor to the kids at local University Terrace Elementary School in her time with the team, while also participating in various playground builds at elementary schools in Baton Rouge. Also, she took part in the annual LSU Move-In Day the last two years while helping the incoming freshmen move into their on-campus dorms at the start of the fall semester.
With Gomez-Junco joining senior defender Alex Arlitt as team captains during the 2015 season, the Tigers made their long-awaited return to the NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Tournament for the fifth time in squad history and first time since 2011. They finished with a 13-6-4 overall record and a 5-4-2 mark and 17 points for seventh place in the final SEC standings during the 2015 season that ended in the NCAA First Round.
LSU’s dead ball specialist scored a career-high five goals as the team’s third-leading goal scorer this fall, including three goals directly from free kicks as one of the nation’s most lethal free-kick takers. She added a total of seven assists to finish with a career-high 17 points in her two seasons with the Tigers.
Gomez-Junco started all 43 games for the Tigers in the 2014 and 2015 seasons, scoring nine goals and serving up 11 assists for 29 points while helping lead the charge in the attack in her two seasons with the Tigers.