HAMMOND, La. – Southeastern Louisiana midfielder Maggie Ramsey laughs when told although she is listed as a junior, she has the experience of a senior after redshirting the 2016 season.

   “I know, I’m old,” Ramsey said jokingly after practice early Thursday morning.

   But that experience is what Southeastern needed for the 2017 season with a new coaching staff and 11 newcomers coming on board.

   “It’s great,” Lady Lions first-year head coach Chris McBride said of Ramsey, who will have a year of eligibility remaining in 2018. “Having a new coach and an assistant coach (Mary Mancin) and changing philosophy and systems, it’s good to have that leadership and seniority for two years because she does a good job of relaying our vision for the program to the team.”

   Ramsey agreed she is able to provide guidance for a young squad that has 11 freshmen and three sophomores on its roster.

   “I think just being a leader in general, being able to have so much experience, having the girls ask me questions about years in the past, how things are run, how conference goes,” Ramsey said of what she can bring to this year’s team. “I have so many years under my belt compare to them.”

   And she jokes, there are times she can feel that.

   “Sometimes my legs get tired quicker than some of these freshmen,” Ramsey said. “It kind of makes me play better, more competitively. I try to stay just as fit and active and energized as they are.”

   In a way, the 2017 season is sort of a freshman season for Ramsey, who was limited to six matches in 2016 after suffering a series of concussions.

   “I feel like it’s kind of a redemption year,” Ramsey said. “I didn’t know how physically I was going to come in, whether I was going to be back on top of my game, how long it was going to take me to get back into soccer condition. The whole summer, I definitely worked hard, with the coaches, too. We had a game plan of what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to perform coming in and taking it in full stride, making sure I came in competing and that nothing was for sure. I still had to earn my spot like everybody else even though I had been here for so many years. It definitely made me work a lot harder.”

   At the time she was sidelined, Ramsey was leading the Lady Lions with three goals and seven points. She had been named the Southland Conference Player of the Week for the opening week of the season after tying a career high with two goals in a 2-0 win at Jackson State. She also had an assist in a 2-1 win over Mississippi Valley State and scored in a 3-1 loss at Louisiana-Lafayette.

   Ramsey said she does not remember the match against the Ragin’ Cajuns.

   “It was a little scary and kind of heartbreaking,” Ramsey said of the weeks following that match. “I came into preseason as fittest I’ve ever been and was so pumped for the season. Then literally, I had my season cut so short. Only got six games in and I was out.”

   Although she could not be on the pitch with her teammates, Ramsey learned she could help her team out in other ways.

   “It was about staying positive and knowing just because I’m not on the field doesn’t mean I can’t be there for my teammates,” Ramsey said. “I definitely took a more moral -supporting, kind of coach-like role. It actually made me a better soccer player, having to watch my teammates play. I got to learn a different side of my teammates, watching them every single game. I saw how exactly they are playing so it set me up for this season.”

   Ramsey said the injury forced her to change the way she played.

   “I had to figure out as a player how to be smarter,” Ramsey said. “I was way more physical, going into tackles, just throwing my body around and not caring about what happened. I think that is why I didn’t get hurt, ever. That was my first time in my soccer career, since I was 4, I had to sit out. That was a new thing for me. Now, it’s not that I don’t go in hard, I’m just smarter about the way that I play. I don’t put myself in situations to have an outcome like last year. I definitely had to get more tactical. I had to work more on my first touch, on receiving the ball. I had to use my chest more and being able to make sure my first touch doesn’t pop up.

   “Just being able to work on my skills and my abilities, it’s transformed me into an entirely different player. I talk to my parents after every game and they are always in awe about how I look like a different player. As crazy as it sounds, taking that year off, made me a better player.”

   Ramsey has also changed positions, moving from midfield to forward.

   “Which I never really thought I was going to,” Ramsey said. “I’ve been kind of a center-mid. But because of the concussions, I had to find my own role on the field and I think playing forward has been the best decision for me. Scoring goals is my objective on the field and I have my coaches’ and my teammates’ support so it really has altogether made me a better player.”

   Ramsey has been reaching that objective in 2017. She is currently sixth in the Southland Conference with 25 shots and tied for ninth with a team-high three goals. She received honorable mention Southland Player of the Week recognition after scoring a pair of goals in a 3-2 overtime loss at Alabama State and netted the equalizer in the 61^st minute in a 1-1 draw with Louisiana-Monroe.

   “She has done really well,” McBride said. “We’re trying to find her a position on the field with the new coaching style of where she is going to fit in. She has played various positions for us and she’s been very effective at all the positions. It’s going to take maybe a few more games to see exactly where her defined position is but she is one of the players we can play anywhere and does a good job.”

   With a young roster learning a new system and style of play, Southeastern got off to a 2-4-1 start in non-conference. But Ramsey said the squad did not worry about the record, saying it got a lot out of those first eight matches.

   “I think what coach Chris and coach Mary both emphasize is, that in the nonconference games, obviously we wanted to win, but if we took chances and they countered and scored or we didn’t get the outcome we wanted, it was more what we took out of the game,” Ramsey said. “Some of the games we lost, we learned so much about soccer and about ourselves - what we needed to be doing, what worked and what didn’t. Non-conference was supposed to be a building period. We’re so new and have so many freshmen who are starting. I had not even played with most of my teammates because I sat out last year. It was trying to find the chemistry and which players needed to be on the field and in what positions and who needed to be playing with who.”

   Ramsey said she knows there is plenty of time to turn the season around, especially in a conference as even as the Southland. The Lady Lions (3-6-1, 1-2) picked up their first conference win, 2-0, over Incarnate Word on Sunday. They visit Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Friday.

   “It’s about staying focused 100 percent of the time, all 90 minutes, and that is one of the biggest emphasis coach Chris has put on us,” Ramsey said. “We have to stay focused, we can’t shut off. Going into the rest of conference, it’s about not being down on ourselves because no loss is going to be the complete outcome of the season. The conference is so close, all the teams are so good. We’re all neck and neck, so one weekend isn’t going to change the outcome of the conference. The standings are always going to be changing. One loss doesn’t mean you’re going to be out of the tournament. That’s the greatest thing about our conference - people win and lose against teams that maybe they aren’t supposed to, but the next weekend, you can come back and have a double win.”

   Ramsey knows about what it takes to make it to the conference tournament with Southeastern having made it all three of her seasons so far. The Lady Lions won the tournament her sophomore season in 2015 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament before losing at No. 19 Auburn, 1-0.

   “Coming in as a freshman, all the upperclassmen were telling us, you don’t know what it feels like to win a ring, and they like hyped it up,” Ramsey said. “We were like, it can’t be that big of a deal. But winning the conference tournament, it alone was such a huge thing. It was probably one of the best feelings in my life, knowing I was going to get a ring and that we worked so hard and it paid off. Then going to the NCAA Tournament, it’s such a big deal. It’s on a national stage and so many people back home are watching the game. Playing such a good team like Auburn, I think they were No. 19 in the nation going in, it was such a huge deal. Like anything, you rise to the occasion and I think we showed up to play and although we lost, it was definitely one of the best experiences.”

   Ramsey said she has had a number of experiences, both good ones and rough ones, in her three-plus seasons at Southeastern. Along with the successes and losses on the field, she has seen a pair of coaching changes over the past two seasons.

   “It’s definitely been a ride, some good, some bad, some tough, some easy,” Ramsey said. “As a scholar-athlete, we have to focus on education and soccer at the same time and I think everyone has to kind of mature and grow as an adult. I feel like, in the years I’ve been here, as a person I have grown but also as a player, both mentally and physically. I’ve learned a lot about myself, just learning how to communicate with people and how to social and making sure my life is all balanced out with school, social life and soccer. Making sure I’m keeping up with the expectations that are on me, from the coaches, the professors, my family. It’s definitely been rough at times, but that is what your teammates and family are for, to hold you up and hold you accountable.”

   Ramsey has succeeded in balancing academics and athletics. She is a three-time member of the Southland Conference Fall Commissioner’s Honor Roll and holds a 3.08 grade point average while majoring in both political science and criminal justice and minoring in history, international studies and sociology.

   “Obviously I don’t even know,” Ramsey said of how she balances both. “Everybody always kinds of laughs that I’m going 100 miles per hour. I work too. It is all about balancing and making sure I’m finding time for myself and to recover and making sure I’m on top of my schoolwork. We have such great professors here. I think I’ve just built very good relationships with my professors and they definitely make me rise to the occasion.

   Ramsey said it was some of the professors who had the idea for her to pick up all these minors.

   “I have to stay eligible because I’m going to be here for a fifth year so picking up the second major is kind of a NCAA thing,” Ramsey said. “It’s also kind of a pride thing, to say that I have two majors and three minors, that I took my scholarship and made the best out of it. To be able to walk away and look at all the things I’ve learned and the schooling that I’ve received, it’s definitely a blessing. It gets hard to handle sometimes. It just takes focus and dedication. You have expectations you have to uphold, from your parents and your coaches. It’s honestly a challenge and I’m always up to a challenge.”

   Ramsey said she is planning on going into the army after she graduates in the intelligence/counter-terrorism field.

   “Getting the military experience is only going to set me up for the future,” Ramsey said. “I want to eventually work in the government or for a private contractor, wherever it leads me.”

   Ramsey said her parents have had an influence on that career choice but that she has also been interested in those fields for years.

   “It’s funny, my mother is not even an American and she is one of most patriotic people I’ve ever met,” Ramsey said of her mom, Judy, who is Canadian. “My parents have a very patriotic attitude toward taking pride in your country and caring about others. Just growing up, I’m always been up for a challenge and a problem that can’t be solved right away and terrorism as a whole is not a quick fix. I’m just really into that kind of stuff. I’m into other cultures and learning about other nations and how their governments work. I’ve always been into politics in general. I’m always watching the news and it’s really interesting to me.”

   Ramsey’s dad, Mark, is from California and she is a native of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. So how did a girl from southern California end up in Hammond, Louisiana?

   “I feel like I get asked that on a daily basis,” Ramsey laughed. “I’m from Orange County, so coming here, it was definitely different. I think that’s why when I first came here, I loved it and I wanted to commit here. The old coaches loved the California players and recruited us so heavily. And you can’t turn down a scholarship and a chance to play. That was my biggest thing for college coming in. I wanted to be able to compete for a spot and not sit on the bench for two years. When our former coach told me I had a very good chance for a starting spot as long as I came in and competed, I think that’s what sold me. And then obviously Hammond itself, it had a small-town vibe and made it seem like a home. I’ve been here for almost four years and I feel like it’s definitely some place I can call home now.”

   Ramsey said she has also found a home on this year’s team and that the closeness of the players has helped them deal with all the changes since last season.

   “We had so many girls come in, transfers and freshmen, so it basically was half of a whole new team,” Ramsey said. “It as two halves coming together. We were all in the same boat with new coaches, a new style, a new commitment. We all had to learn and experience it together so it wasn’t like the older girls and the younger girls. We’re all one team. The seniors don’t focus on the class structure. There is no seniors this and the freshmen that. It’s definitely a blend. It really is like a sisterhood. Growing together and having to experience it and change together, it made us a better team.”

   A team Ramsey said has a common goal.

   “We don’t just want to get to the tournament, we want to be number one in conference,” Ramsey said. “We want to show everyone who had all these doubts about us, that bringing in so many people, having a new coaching staff, we definitely are still a team that will compete. We’ve always been one of the powerhouses in the Southland conference and we have expectations to win the tournament. We have to give it our all, every single game, no matter who we are playing. Our goal is to just stay focused the whole season and to play for each other and to have fun. I think we have been accomplishing our goals regardless of some of the outcomes of the game. We are here to compete and I think that’s been the number one goal, to compete 100 percent every single game.”