Cypress Bay’s Maddy Brouse is Broward girls’ soccer 7A-5A player of the year

Maddy Brouse’s senior season for the Cypress Bay girls’ soccer team was one filled with adjustments.

She was a starter for the Lightning for the first time after two years on the junior varsity team and then spending her junior season as a reserve who didn’t see the field.

She also learned a new position.

After almost exclusively playing as a defensive midfielder or center back during her soccer career, Brouse was one of three players who had to play out of position and be a striker for Cypress Bay after the Lightning graduated all three of their starting forwards from last season’s team.

It took a little bit for Brouse to get settled into the new role. An early season ankle injury didn’t help things, either.

But Brouse, the Miami Herald’s 7A-5A Broward Girls’ Soccer Player of the Year, became a force for a Lightning team that finished as the Class 7A state runners-up.

Brouse, who hopes to walk-on to the FAU soccer team, admits the new forward group struggled at the start of the season, which played a factor in Cypress Bay’s 3-4-1 record after its first eight games.

By the end of the year, things clicked. Brouse shone as a result. She finished the season with 12 goals and added seven assists. That included three goals and three assists during Cypress Bay’s state series run that ended with a 3-1 loss to St. Johns Creekside in the Class 7A title game in DeLand.

“It was just funny,” Brouse said. “In the beginning, it was hilarious because we had no idea what we were doing, but it definitely got more fun as we actually understood what we were doing.”

The biggest lesson Brouse took from the experience?

“Patience,” Brouse said. “You have to relax. You can’t be stressed out about not understanding. You’re going to understand it eventually. It’s soccer. I’ve played soccer my whole life.”

That mentality — and her ability to learn a new position on the fly — paid dividends during Cypress Bay’s playoff run, which included wins over Cooper City (2-0), Stoneman Douglas (6-0), Palmetto (2-1) and Boca Raton (3-0) before that title-game loss.

“It was a very long run,” Brouse said. “It was so much fun and we enjoyed every minute of it. And it was not easy. I don’t think we thought we would make it this far this year, but we really stepped up when we needed to.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 9:30 AM.