Position Preview: Midfielders

This is Part Four of 12thman.com's four-part series previewing the 2023 Aggie soccer season.

Talent everywhere.

A very strong argument could be made that Texas A&M’s midfielder corps is the deepest and most talented in the country. If soccer changed its rules to allow 16 players on the pitch, Coach Guerrieri and the staff would be tempted to roll out a 3-10-2 formation.

Mia Pante leads the group fresh off her All-SEC Second Team junior campaign. She is joined five other returnees who started at least 50 percent of the Aggies matches in 2022, including Sydney Becerra (13), Carissa Boeckmann (15), Kate Colvin (19), Quinn Cornog (19) and Taylor Pounds (13). 

Other returnees who bolster the midfield are Georgia Leb—who started seven matches down the stretch in 2022 after Pounds’ season-ending injury—and Andersen Williams, who is the healthiest she’s been in Aggieland after suffering injuries in two of her first three seasons.

A trio of freshmen give the Aggies’ midfield a bright future, including Texans Adysen Armenta and Ella Goodwin, along with two-time Gatorade Florida High School Player of the Year Grace Ivey.

ADYSEN ARMENTA

Armenta was a two-year letter winner at Klein Collins High School, earning team MVP recognition both years. She was selected All-District 15-6A First Team in 2020 and ’21. Armenta was selected District 15-6A Co-Midfielder of the Year as a sophomore in 2021 and District 15-6A Newcomer of the Year in 2020. She has experience at US Soccer Women’s National Team regional training centers in 2018 and ’19.

Coach G’s Take – “Adysen is a really special athlete. She’s got an engine to be able to run an entire sideline and that’s something that not many athletes on the Division I level can really do. She can go 75 yards and then get the ball and cause problems for the opponent. She has such a good sense for finding spaces and those spaces oftentimes are more prevalent in wide areas. We think that we can play her in a role of a defender but can impose her attacking abilities on the other team – using that athleticism to be more than just a single dimension in our system.”

SYDNEY BECERRA

As a rookie, Becerra played in 20 matches, including 13 starts. She racked up eight points on two goals and four assists in her 979 minutes on the pitch. The 2020-21 Gatorade Texas High School Player of the Year made strong impressions early on, getting named to the TopDrawerSoccer.com Midseason Freshman Best XI.

Coach G’s Take - “Sydney is the best midfielder in the state of Texas. She’s poised and very modest with her skills. She’s so fun to watch. If you were to watch how smooth she is on the ball, it is really something to behold because she is so crafty in the way she goes about things. She can score from distance and she can dribble and make you look silly.”

CARISSA BOECKMANN

Boeckmann has recorded 39 Aggie caps, including 19 starts, logging nearly 1,900 minutes on the pitch her first two seasons. The San Antonio native has 12 career points on four goals and four assists. Last year, she registered eight points with two goals and four assists. She had productive summer playing for Tampa Bay United of the USL W-League, where she earned Southeast Division Most Valuable Player recognition.

Coach G’s Take – “Carissa is one of the most improved players on the team. Her first two years you could see real glimpses of brilliance on the ball and she scored some amazing goals, but she was a little bit inconsistent. Over time, she’s become much more consistent. Now that she’s an upperclassman, she has a chance to be a big-time player.”

KATE COLVIN

Colvin is one of the Aggies most experienced players this season. She owns 54 Aggie caps, including 38 starts. Colvin has registered 28 career points on nine goals and 10 assists. Last year she started all 21 games, recording 16 points on four goals and a team-high eight assists. She played 70-plus minutes in seven matches, including the last six of the seasons.

Coach G’s Take – “Kate she gives us the ability to change our formation. She can play centrally, but she can also play out wide, which means that when she's in the game, we can play her as a true winger and put her into, into a space to isolate one versus one against anyone that we want, we want to expose on the other team. she's such a good one on one player and she gives us a real edge in any kind of individual duel that we want. She's fearless, she's tenacious in the way that she goes about the game. She's proven to be one of the best in setting up her teammates with, with her service, but she's also scored some of the most important goals in her time here at Texas A&M.”

QUINN CORNOG

Cornog owns 38 career SEC caps, including two starts, playing one season at Vanderbilt and continuing her career in Aggieland. Last year she started 19 games, logging five points on two goals and an assist in 1,440 minutes on the pitch. She earned SEC All-Freshman recognition her first season, at Vanderbilt in 2021, and owns 38 career SEC caps including 22 starts.

Coach G’s Take – “Quinn is another really special member of the team. She transferred in and immediately bonded with the girls on and off the field. She solidified herself as our defensive midfielder and earned midfielder MVP in her first year. We moved her onto the back line due to injury and it’s actually helped her in the way that she sees the game. It still has her on the field as a weapon along with her leadership, which is really important for us."

ELLA GOODWIN

Goodwin is a local product who earned four letters at A&M Consolidated High School, earning multiple All-District 11-5A honors. She was also a standout on Challenge Soccer Club, helping the team win the United Soccer Club ECNL Texas Regional League in 2021-22.

Coach G’s Take – “Ella is a great pure athlete with a great athletic frame to her. She is getting used to playing on the Division I, SEC level and the speed of play that comes with it. Every day she is getting more comfortable with the things we are doing.”

GRACE IVEY

Ivey was a two-time Gatorade Florida High School Player of the Year leading Bartram Trail High School. As a senior she earned Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Soccer Award after leading the Bears to a Florida High School Athletic Association Class 7A Championship with 19 goals and 35 assists. Bartram Trail posted an amazing 79-4-5 mark during her career as she racked up 59 goals and 59 assists.

Coach G’ Take – “Grace was the best player in the state of Florida the last two seasons. She is somebody who could play in any of our roles in the midfield. We’re looking forward to her getting comfortable at this level. She’s got great abilities and vision on the ball. Getting her comfortable in this environment is job one for us after the season.”

GEORGIA LEB

Georgia enters her second season in Aggieland. She played in 21 matches as a freshman, including starts in the last seven contests in place of an injured Taylor Pounds. She played the full 90 minutes in four matches, including three SEC contests and the NCAA Tournament game vs. Texas. Leb earned honors as Texas A&M’s Most Improved Player last season.

Coach G’s Take – “Georgia is incredibly driven. She’s a worker bee. When she came to A&M she was coming off a long-term injury, but she came up big for us down the stretch and stepped in when Taylor Pounds went down. Her and Taylor aren’t really similar players, but Georgia was able to come in and put her stamp on the way we were going to play and she did a wonderful job.”

MIA PANTE

Pante is a two-time All-SEC honoree, earning second team distinction last year and all-freshman recognition in 2021. She boasts 35 Aggie caps, including 33 starts, logging 2,343 minutes on the pitch. Pante has registered 23 career points on four goals and 15 assists. She boasts a wealth of international experience, including earning a bronze medal at the CONCACAF Women’s U20 Championship (2022) and a FIFA Women’s U20 World Cup appearance (2022) for the Canadian National Team. 

Coach G’s Take – “Mia is one of the best pure soccer players in the SEC. She’s passionate about the game. She’s very skillful, technical and gifted in her ability on the ball. She has a great sense of how the game can be played at a high speed. Mia wants to get better every day. She’s a real joy to be around in training because she’s always asking questions and always looking for ways to improve. She’s somebody that is out on the field and getting more touches on the ball, which is contagious for her teammates.”

TAYLOR POUNDS

Taylor is one of the Aggies’ most experienced players, starting the first 48 matches of her career before a season-ending injury in 2022. She has logged 19 career points on eight goals and three assists. Last season, she had two goals and two assists in 13 games before the injury. Pounds logged three goals in each of her first two seasons. She ranked fourth on the team in minutes played as a freshman in 2020-21 and fifth in 2021.

Coach G’s Take – “We took a big hit last year when Taylor went down with her foot injury. We had to change a lot of the things we were doing because she covers so much ground and we had to move in a different way. She covers the ground of about three people and that cover allows other people to do more things in the attack. Having her back is huge for us and she crushed the fitness test in preseason camp, so she’s fitter than she’s ever been.”

ANDERSEN WILLIAMS

Andersen has battled through injuries her first three seasons and is now as healthy as she’s been since arriving in Aggieland. She played 17 of her 19 career matches last season, racking up 512 minutes as she worked back from injury. Her playing time found its crescendo in the SEC Tournament with 82 minutes in the Aggies’ match against Mississippi State. 

Coach G’s Take – “Andy is one of the smartest players we have. She's multidimensional. As a youth international player for Canada she was a true winger. But I've seen her play for Vancouver Whitecaps as a wide defender. She's played as a defensive central midfielder for us in the past and even without any kind of training in that role because she has such a good soccer IQ. She was able to step right in and be able to pick it up immediately. She's very technical and poised in front of goal. She's somebody we feel like, almost anywhere that we have a need, she can fill that need. That makes her very, very valuable and it doesn't just pin her into one option to be able to get on the field.”