PEMBROKE — The Purnell Swett girls soccer team didn’t need as much from Josie McLean night in and night out to be successful this season, with a deeper roster featuring more weapons.

And yet, the junior forward posted career highs in both goals and assists, topping a pair of previous campaigns that won her Robeson County Player of the Year honors.

After the best season yet for both McLean and the Rams team, she has earned the award for a third consecutive spring.

“It’s encouraging to just get better, to never be satisfied and always wanting to outperform my past self and set goals for myself each time,” McLean said. “But it’s nothing that I have done; I don’t play for myself, but I play for the glory of God and that someone could see God within me as I play. That was really important, and I feel like once I realized that, I didn’t have as much anxiety as I played, so that helped me to just have fun and just take it all in.”

McLean scored 39 goals with 20 assists in her junior season. This comes after scoring 21 goals as a freshman and 33 as a sophomore, with 11 assists in both of those seasons.

With the recognition, McLean also becomes a three-time All-County selection. For the rest of the All-County Team and postseason awards, see the related story here.

McLean’s individual success this season came as she was often man-marked or double teamed by the opposition, due to their awareness of her explosive capabilities.

“What I was most impressed about Josie’s season was even though she was double-teamed and triple-teamed at times during games this season, it didn’t affect her attitude-wise or her work rate,” Purnell Swett coach Alaric Strickland said. “She just kept plugging along and just kept working and trying to get the job done … The way she’s not forcing anything, she knows she has teammates to help her out if she gets into a double-team situation. She’s finding open teammates and they’re finding the open player, and the ball’s still moving; that’s a huge plus.”

That individual play helped lead the Rams to a historic season, winning a program-record 20 games, clinching a share of the United-8 Conference regular-season championship, and hosting a state playoff game for the first time.

“The beginning of the season, we knew we had new players coming in, and we knew that would help us because we had been lacking in the midfield the last two years,” McLean said. “We had a younger team, but we were able to grow together this season, so we’re more older, and I feel like that helped us a lot. We matured as a team, and we knew the goals we had set for the past two years, and we had just missed (our goals) the past two years. … We really wanted it this season and we had a hunger to come out, because we knew we had the potential and we just had to articulate it, and that really helped us.”

McLean says was more focused on playing team soccer this year, not individual results. The individual goals and assists ultimately took care of themselves as she tried to make the best plays she could to help the Rams win.

“I had a lot of pressure on myself the beginning of my sophomore year, because it was like ‘oh, you’ve got to beat your freshman year,’” McLean said. “I feel like I kind of let that go this season, and it’s not what I do, it’s what the team does. The beginning of the season I was like, I’m not going to focus on my own individual stats, but as a team, we’re going to focus on helping each other out, and that helped with my assists. I was a little bit more selfless off the ball too, and being able to work together we were able to do more combination plays, and that allowed for more goals for me and more assists to get done.”

“She saw how other girls were going to affect the outcome of a game, and she was able to facilitate passes to them and get them more involved,” Strickland said. “She saw how we had a more balanced attacking threat as a team, and she adjusted her game to get the rest of the players that stepped in, and I thought it was a very smooth transition.”

While McLean was already the county’s best player when she began playing varsity soccer as a freshman, she was far more soft-spoken then than now. Today, she’s grown into a vocal leader on the Rams, and is one of two team captains alongside All-County defender Jahna Locklear.

“Everyone learns differently I guess, and I find it easier when somebody explains something to me, or just encourages me and builds me up, like ‘hey, you’re doing good, but this could help you also.’ I find myself like, because (Jahna and I) got captain this year, and whenever I saw someone that was kind of struggling, I was like ‘hey, you’re doing great, keep your head up, but here’s something you can work on,’ and I feel like that helps encourage like teammates do.”

Outspoken about her faith, McLean also leads the Rams in pregame prayers to encourage her teammates.

“You’re never going to be in this moment, so give it all you have now,” she said she tells them.

McLean has one season of high school soccer still to come at Purnell Swett, but has also begun the process of looking for a collegiate home. She recently attended an “ID camp” with numerous college coaches in attendance.

“Putting myself out there is a big part, having to send emails now, that’s kind of what it’s looking at,” McLean said. “I’m still going to do my travel team and go to showcases. So it’s never really stopping, it’s always doing something, and I feel like that’s good, because if you want to get recruited you’ve got to put yourself out there, and I’ve come to learn that, so just continuing to get better in the offseason is very important so you can come back stronger for the next season.”

She’ll spend the summer working on her game, with both her senior high school and freshman college seasons in mind.

“She’s going to work hard over the summer, like she’s always done, and just work on little things that she thinks she needs to improve on and I think she needs to improve on,” Strickland said. “She’s already got that laid out, and she’s already got a plan for the summer. More power to her; she doesn’t rest, she just takes a week off and then she goes right back at it.”

As for how she’d like her senior season with the Rams to play out, more individual accolades isn’t what comes to her mind, but a bigger team accomplishment.

“I’m just looking to get better for next season,” McLean said. “We tied (for the conference championship); the goal was to get first in the conference, but we tied, so hopefully next year we’re coming to take it all for ourselves.”