BEFORE MOST SOUTH FLORIDA GAMES, Natoli will tell anyone within earshot (aka her locker neighbors) her prediction for the day.
I’m going to score today.
The reaction is usually light-hearted for the middie that spends plenty of time on defense. She hadn’t even recorded a shot through South Florida’s first eight games.
“It’s been a bit of a joke,” she said. “Like I’m going to take it from low defense and score.”
On March 15, Natoli watched as teammate Paige Pagano stopped a free position shot in the fourth quarter against Temple. The ball trickled toward Natoli, who scooped it, sped through the midfield and saw daylight.
Jackpot.
Natoli barreled past the restraining line and into the 12-meter fan, eyes locked in on the cage. She hit her defender with a roll dodge and charged forward, bouncing a shot past Temple goalie Taylor Grollman for her first career goal.
“I was losing my mind,” Natoli said. “Just seeing everyone’s reaction to these first career goals has been awesome.”
The bench erupted. Natoli screamed as she embraced her teammates on the field. The Bulls’ cheerleaders led the crowd. In a season in which many of South Florida’s first-year players have scored for the first time, Natoli’s felt different.
The redshirt freshman from Doylestown, Pa., was the first recruit in the history of South Florida. She decided to join a program that had no other commitments, even without visiting campus, based on her belief in Mindy McCord.
Natoli originally committed to play for Mindy McCord in 2023 — at Jacksonville.
Just a few months later, McCord informed her recruits that she was taking the USF job. Natoli put her faith in a coach she trusted, and she decided to follow her.
“They say don’t pick a college for a coach, but I did anyway,” she said. “How can you not? It makes such a big impact on your life in college. She was coming here to build a legacy, build a new culture. She knows what she’s doing. Even when it was just her as the coach and me as our first recruit, I knew we were going to build something big.”
Natoli then had to wait for the family around her to form. Much like being the first person to join a Zoom call, Natoli anxiously awaited a human connection to South Florida.
She created a group chat and looped in the next few recruits, including club teammate Brooke Hill and Maryland native Grace Brukiewa.
“I texted them and said, ‘This is our team right here,’” Natoli remembered. “We laughed about it, but it was true at that moment.”
Once she heard about a new commit, she’d find her Instagram and send a direct message, hoping to add another member to the chat.
Eventually, the 2024 recruiting class rounded out at 20 players, and met on campus with seven additional transfers in the fall of 2023 — including Chepenik, who dropped 53 points in her freshman season at Clemson.
“We all believed in the vision that we heard from Coach McCord,” Chepenik said. “I was going to be able to leave a legacy that was different than if I went to an established program.”
Chepenik grew up playing soccer in Jacksonville but discovered her passion for lacrosse when she attended a camp led by the McCords. The vision for lacrosse in Florida that the McCords outlined in 2013 came to fruition in the form of Chepenik.
“I don’t think little Sofia would have ever thought she’d be here,” Chepenik said, choking up. “Being able to come back to Florida and give back to the sport that has given me so much, it makes me proud.”
Together, the freshman class and the veteran transfers spent the 2023-24 NCAA season building a foundation for the program. Mindy and Paul McCord established the same fast-paced mentality and approach to defense that their Jacksonville teams once mastered.
South Florida hosted its first exhibition on Oct. 28, 2023, welcoming Division II powers Florida Southern and Saint Leo. Throughout the next year, the Bulls added as many talented teams as they could, hoping to replicate the challenges they’d face in their first season in Division I.
The Scottish National Team visited Tampa to battle South Florida in the spring of 2024. In the fall, the Bulls faced off against Florida, North Carolina, Maryland and Duke.
“We got plenty of experience and exposure to teach these kids how to win within our system in year one and do it with no bench at all,” Orashen said. “If we can figure that out, we are ready to make some power moves.”
South Florida was ready to take on its first season in 2025 but had an eye for the future. At a school that boasts nearly 50,000 students — and a robust athletic program that announced plans to build a 35,000-seat stadium that would be home to lacrosse — there was a belief that the South Florida women’s lacrosse program could, and will, grow more quickly than at Jacksonville.
“Mindy coached Jacksonville and made it a top 20 program in a matter of years,” Natoli said. “At USF, where we have a lot of resources, a supportive athletic facility and the support of the university, we’re going to build that even quicker here. It’s a recipe for greatness.”