Louisville girls soccer player Miye Kodama stuffed a journal that was given to her by her dad with all kinds of notes and goals.
Papers from team meetings were tucked into pages that were filled with reminders of what she is working for. As a team, Louisville wanted to win league and reach the CIF Southern Section playoffs. As an individual, she wanted to break the school’s scoring record while also playing basketball in the same season.
Kodama and her team accomplished all of those goals. Her ability to balance individual accomplishments with team camaraderie has also led her to become the Daily News girls soccer player of the year.
Miye Kodama is the Daily News girls soccer player of the year. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
“Our senior year was kind of a miracle year,” Kodama said. “‘Make it count’ was our motto that the seniors came up with, and that was probably the most special part of the season.”
The Louisville girls soccer team completed a championship trifecta this season, winning the Sunshine League title, CIF-SS Division 4 title and CIF State SoCal Regional Division IV title. Kodama’s 41 goals set a new school record and she was named the CIF-SS Division 4 Player of the Year.
Kodama’s start to the season was slow, however. She saw scoring as her main job on the team, and the goals were not coming as often as she would have liked.
“After you make a mistake, you’re thinking about that mistake which is why you make the next one,” Kodama said. “I do try to forget about that stuff. It’s just kind of being diligent, being committed to having to do it because no one wants to come home in the winter and have to take an ice bath in a trash can outside.”
Her parents encouraged her to have the memory of a goldfish — à la Ted Lasso — and Kodama also began to meditate before games. She pushed the self-doubt away and with the help of teammates like midfielder Kylie Morris, ended her career with 96 career goals.
She also tallied 21 assists for 213 career points and achieved 21 hat tricks in her 69 games.
Kodama became known not just for her soccer abilities but also for playing basketball for Louisville at the same time. She lived for the games, but often had to turn down team dinners or seeing friends due to obligations to another sport.
She was also limited in the time she could spend training with the teams due to school rules, so she would often train independently on her own time and by herself.
“There can be definitely (loneliness) because I have to sacrifice one thing for another a lot,” Kodama said. “I had to work out on my own, I had to go over plays by myself. Sometimes I’d be like, why am I doing this? But then as soon as I step right back on the field, that’s why.”
Miye Kodama is the Daily News girls soccer player of the year. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Louisville girls basketball won the CIF-SS Division 2A championship the day after the girls soccer team won its CIF-SS championship.
Attention flooded to the single-season, dual-sport athlete and news stories about her appeared online, in print and on television. It created an interesting dichotomy for Kodama, who was working so hard to spread her talents between two teams while being solo in the spotlight.
She used the opportunities to shine a light on her teammates and their accomplishments and introduce new people to Louisville and what her school was all about.
“People think it’s a one-man show but it’s completely opposite,” Kodama said. “I try to make a point in all of the interviews to shout out as many of my teammates that I can because, yeah, I score goals, but there’s so many other pieces that go into it.”
Kodama shined this season on her own and with the help of her teammates, coaches and school personnel, which included athletic trainer Kay Montgomery, who helped her physically stay ready to play two different sports.
Learning to be part of a team while finding herself helped Kodama leave a lasting impression on Louisville.
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