By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
There are a lot of things that stand out about Byrd’s MyJoi Anderson, but you have probably guessed what is at the top of the list.
“I get asked about my name a lot,” Anderson said. “I’m my mother’s only child, so I guess it really meant a lot to her.”
She also means a lot to the Byrd girls soccer team as Anderson leads the Jackets into the Division I semifinals.
The 11th-seeded Jackets will get a shot at their first trip to the state finals since 2016 when they play host to 18th-seeded Barbe Saturday at 2:30 at the Byrd soccer field.
Anderson is one of the team’s top scorers, but it hasn’t been an easy road. She was ineligible as a freshman and then broke her ankle during her sophomore year in a game against Loyola.
She and Loyola defender Mary Helen Burford tangled near the net and as both made a play on the ball, the two crashed into each other. “A really common play you see near the goal,” Loyola coach Mark Matlock said. “Just an unfortunate thing.”
Surgery was required for Anderson and she spent three months in a cast, but her recovery did not come as a surprise to Byrd head coach Lisa Leverman.
“She’s that worker you can’t get off the field,” the coach said. “When you see someone get an injury like that, sometimes their head is not in a good space and they can really crumble. She never did. She just went straight to work. Everything she had to do to make herself stronger, she did and always had a positive attitude.”
But the road to soccer success started for Anderson back when she wasn’t even able to play on the varsity.
“I feel like only being able to play JV my freshman year showed me I was good enough to play on varsity as if I was eligible,” Anderson said. “It was a hard time but I still pushed through.”
Playing JV may have been an enlightening experience for Anderson, but it was a miserable one for Byrd’s opponents.
“I had JV coaches so mad at me for playing her,” Leverman said. “They’d say ‘why do you have her on this team?’ But I said ‘Give her a break. She has nowhere else to play.’ If she had been on varsity, I never would have had her play JV. But why should I penalize her? Then she would have nowhere to play at all.”
These days, opposing coaches are still finding out what a force she can be.
“She’s a really strong and runs really well and that makes her tough to knock off the ball,” Matlock said. “She attacks with the ball and is a really good finisher.”
“Once she powers through, there’s no catching her,” said Leverman, who coached Anderson as an academy player at the youth level. “She just has that explosive speed. And she works hard on her craft to try to be the best she can be.”
But if you ask Anderson, she’ll tell you the strength of her game is less obvious. “Just being confident and knowing when to do certain things and being confident in my teammates as well,” she said.
“She’s just as sweet as she can be,” Leverman said. “She has that sweet, soft voice and there is not a mean bone in her body. But when she gets out there to play, she gets this mindset and goes to another level.”
It’s been a rare under-the-radar season for the Jackets. Anderson was still in pre-kindergarten the last time Byrd was seeded this low (2011).
Getting the win over Captain Shreve earlier this week in the quarterfinals was especially sweet for Anderson and the Jackets since it came against a district rival and also overcame something of a playoff roadblock. Byrd had lost its last four quarterfinal appearances (all as single-digit seeds.)
“It was sweet because earlier in the season we kind of got destroyed (5-1) by them,” Anderson said. “It was nice to get revenge and show who we really are. We were more confident than before and trusted each other.”
This will be the second meeting of the season between Byrd and Barbe. The Jackets took the first one 3-1 in December in Lake Charles.
“I know that we are a different team than when we played them, so J know Barbe has got to be different by now too,” Leverman said. “They’ve got to be doing something right, because they are here too.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com