Ayah Ramirez emerging as the leader of the Southeast High School girls’ soccer program

BRADENTON, Fla. (WWSB) - This week’s ABC7 Athlete of the Week is Southeast High School’s Ayah Ramirez. She’s a sophomore and one of the superstar players for the Southeast Lady Seminoles.

They are 3-1 at the start of their season, and planning to accomplish great things this season. Ramirez says those things can only happen if they take of business on the basis practice field and the film room.

“Everything’s been building up pretty good,” Ramirez said. “We’ve been winning. The team that we lost to, we actually won the first time. We knew we could’ve beat them, but we’ll get them back.”

Despite her young age, Ramirez is one of the main voices that you will hear when you watch this team. “I pray before each game just hoping the we can win,” Ramirez said. “A lot of what we need to work on is being intense on and off the field with how we talk to other people.”

This wasn’t always the case though. “When I played soccer when I was young, I did not talk at all,” Ramirez said. “I used to wait for the ball to come to me.”

Things are different now, and Ramirez’s head coach, Carlos Aragon, says her energy is rubbing off on the rest of the team too.

“She’s a natural born leader,” Aragon said. “Not many people are born with that natural ability to kind of have the ability to lead people.”

For seniors like Vidalina Bartolon, it helps having such a young force like Ayah to help rally teammates together.

“I feel like having her on the team is a great opportunity, and being her teammate as well,” Bartolon said. “She is younger than me. The way that she plays truly inspires me, even if I’m much older than her.”

In her spare time Ramirez says just works on becoming the best person that she can become. “I just, I play for the Lord,” Ramirez said. “I pray that I can make it professional.”

Ramirez and the Lady Seminoles return to game action on December 1, when they host Hardee.