Lourdes Academy’s Katerina Puig is Miami-Dade Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year for 7A-5A

Katerina Puig is the first to admit she’s not exactly a flashy player. She’s not a high-volume goal-scorer or a walking highlight reel. Four of her Lourdes Academy teammates scored more goals than her last season and four had more assists.

All she did was exactly what Lourdes needed from her.

“She would distribute, she would break plays,” coach David Fique said. “She would connect.”

It made her the Bobcats’ most valuable player and the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year for Classes 7A-5A.

Puig finished her junior year with eight goals and four assists, yet she came through in the most important moments for Lourdes to help the Bobcats reach the state semifinals for the third straight year and finish as the runners-up in Class 6A.

“I don’t see myself as a top scorer,” Puig said. “I kind of see myself as the person that makes the pass to the scorer and motivating to the team. From the outside in, you can’t really see that I’m out there, but I’m the person that I can connect everyone.”

For Fique, it’s always easy to see on film.

Lourdes punched its ticket to the 6A semifinals with a thrilling win against Doral Academy in the Region 4-6A championship. The Bobcats scored the only goal of the game in the 77th minute in Miami and Puig delivered the game-winning assist, putting a corner kick into the perfect place for senior Mariana Rionda to score her only goal of the season.

The game-winning play came on the second of back-to-back corners at Christopher Columbus High School and Puig didn’t take the first before she demanded to take the second. When Fique looked back at the film of the 4-6A title game, he saw Puig jumping up and down, begging to take the kick.

Like she usually did, Puig came through.

“That was her,” Fique said. “She was one of the players that would go forward.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 9:15 AM.