Latino, from Penn State, is certainly an intriguing pickup. She's a midfielder who came out of club soccer 2 years ago with a lot of accolades--a four-star player and ranked No. 38 in the country by Top Drawer. (Let's acknowledge that individual rankings in all sports are highly subjective and can't be taken too seriously), but you don't accumulate the article list she had on Top Drawer (it's long) without being talented.
She played for the New Jersey-based ECNL club PDA Blue--and PDA is one of the top ECNL clubs on the east coast. On PDA she played with Vol sophomore Leah Klurman--whom I just watched on Hudl score a couple of goals for PDA a couple of years ago, and I saw a few goals from Latino as well. (I've wondered about Klurman and why she didn't play this past season--and apparently the reason is she was one of our many injured players. I assume a knee injury? In any case, let's hope she's recovering well.)
Latino did not play much at Pa. State. She was redshirted as a freshman and so didn't play at all. This past season, as best I can tell, she only played in 3 games, coming in a sub in games against three of Pa. State's weaker opponents. There were three sophomore mids at Pa. State who played regularly this past season, and so one can assume that Latino did not see the prospect of starting next year, either, and that prompted her decision to transfer. (I don't know if she had an injury that contributed to her getting a redshirt her freshman year.) It's not a great sign, IMO, when someone who is a four-star player with her accolades doesn't play much at all in two years---but Pa. State regularly brings in top 5 classes nationally, so there is a lot of competition. I mean, it happens--it's not terribly unusual; we've had four stars who did not play much and transferred--but it is perhaps not a great sign. I was hoping that she'd be a defensive mid--because we need an experienced defensive mid--but Latino seems to be an attacking mid. She is ot shy about shooting. She had 4 shots in one of her Pa. State appearances, and 1 each in the other two. In a few PDA cllips that I watched she took a lot of shots from outside the box--long shots. She seems a pretty good shooter, and hit some of them well--but not well enough to score from 20/25 yards out--and one might argue that some of them were ill-advised and that perhaps she was being a bit impetuous and should have worked the ball around more. Ironically, the longest shot she took--had to be from 30 years--was well hit and placed and went in the net. So, she seems to enjoy shooting--and we certainly need more good shooting.
Our own Jenna Stayart, who is a midfielder who played a lot this year, has a good leg and is a good shooter--maybe the best shooter on the team, based on what I've seen. Problem was, she just didn't get many shooting opportunities this past season. We, as a team, didn't find good shooting lanes enough this past season, didn't generate enough good shots, and didn't shoot the ball particularly well. It's why we struggled in some games to score. We do need better shooting. Latino may help in that respect, we'll have to see. One thing is certain--we will have a /lot/ of midfielders this year. We now have 7 midfielders (not even counting Katz, who is either a mid or an outside back), and 3 coming in as freshmen.. It should be a position of strength and I'd like to see us play with four mids---as we did the year we won 20 games. We probably should have done it this past season.....
(Yes, I can write at length about anything. Apologies!)
