With 16 freshmen on the squad, the No. 15 Gators needed some of them to make an impact right away to be successful.
Defender Jazmyne Avant and midfielder Tahnai Annis made their marks right from the start and haven't looked back.
Now, there is another newcomer starting to make her name known to opponents. Midfielder Lindsay Thompson was named the Southeastern Conference's Freshman and Offensive Player of the Week on Monday.
Thompson has scored a goal in three of the four conference games this season including the game-winner Sunday against Kentucky, and she tallied an assist in the other.
UF coach Becky Burleigh said Thompson is contributing more to the team than just statistics.
"She really puts the other teams under a lot of pressure just with her athleticism, her size, her strength," Burleigh said.
While it has taken longer for Thompson to get acclimated to college soccer than Avant and Annis, she has attributes that will allow her to continue to improve and possibly help UF advance further in the postseason than the last few years.
It was these traits that had Burleigh raving about her new rising playmaker on Monday.
"She's a smart player," Burleigh said. "As soon as you tell her something, she picks it up right away and incorporates it into her game. As a coach, you can't ask for more than that."
FRAINE STARTING NOT PERMANENT: From the beginning of the season, the Gators wanted to choose one goalie to handle the majority of the time in the net.
The tight competition between sophomores Meghan Berlingo and Katie Fraine made this choice difficult for Burleigh.
Last weekend, she finally named Fraine the starter, but the team's starter could change on a weekly basis. Burleigh will be reviewing the goalie situation constantly before making a decision that will stand for the rest of the season.
"I don't think (the move to have Fraine as the starter) is from here on out. We decided to name a starter, and we did that," Burleigh said. "That was Katie for the weekend; not even for the weekend, we named her the starter for Friday."
