Kylie Hayes, a forward on The University of Memphis women’s soccer team, has done two things well in her first two weeks of college soccer: have fun and score goals.
Hayes has scored four goals to go along with three assists for Memphis, helping them to a 3-1 record. It says a great deal about the team and Hayes. Both of them are excelling.
The season’s start began with a 7-0 slaughtering of Tennessee Tech. After a 2-1 loss to a currently undefeated Samford team, the Lady Tigers won two games in a row, starting with a 2-1 win against Evansville and a 3-0 shutout of UT-Martin Wednesday.
The opponents’ three goals are still under Hayes’s four.
And finding the ball with the net hasn’t been easy.
“She’s got a knack for the goal. You can’t really teach that, and she’s got it,” said head coach Brooks Monaghan. “She’s worked very hard for her goals.”
Work is something Monaghan says Hayes knows very well. Her work ethic has translated directly into success for her and the team.
“She’s a very humble kid, a team - oriented player,” Monaghan said.
Hayes takes Carla Scanniello’s place on the field. Scanniello had 15 points in 2004 to lead the Lady Tigers to an 11-8 record.
In just four games, Hayes has already produced 80 percent Scanniello’s 2004 total of six goals in 19 games.
Putting up impressive stats isn’t new to Hayes. In four years at Piqua High School in Piqua, Ohio, Hayes tallied 141 goals and 37 assists, including 47 goals in her senior season, which lead the state of Ohio.
Hayes came from Piqua to The U of M because of team chemistry. She said when she visited other schools the girls on the team didn’t get along, but at Memphis the girls knew how to have fun.
“We’re all fun-spirited,” she said.
As well as having fun on the field, the team’s leading scorer also exhibits a mature attitude for a freshman.
“I wouldn’t say it was all me doing it for sure,” she said about her goal scoring. “I’m pretty low-key about it.”
Memphis is a team with more scoring threats than positions on the field, and an attitude like Hayes’s will only help chemistry.
The first goal of her college career came against Tennessee Tech and it merited celebration.
“It was a little more memorable than my first high school goal,” she said. “It was an amazing feeling.”
The record for goals scored in a season Memphis is 18 set by Jessica Gjertsen in 2000. Hayes is on pace to match that number.
