After the LSE Girls Varsity Soccer team’s incredible 2022 season, including the upsets they pulled off against rivals Lincoln Southwest and Lincoln East, they were given a new nickname, which originated on Twitter: Agent of Chaos. 

From there, the nickname only grew. During their run to the state final last year, the girls beat Omaha Westside and Marian High School. Eventually, they lost to Gretna High School in the final. Even with these upsets, according to senior captain Cadence Bonneau, most people in the state weren’t following the hype. 

“People were calling us ‘lucky’, but we put in the work,” Bonneau said. 

This historic state final run was led in part by junior goalkeeper Samaya Hogg. Hogg outshined every other goalkeeper at the tournament with two shutouts in the opening two rounds, a game-winning penalty save in the semifinal and 32 total saves during the state tournament at Morrison Stadium in Omaha. 

Hogg went on to be named Girls Class A Tournament MVP and Girls Soccer First-team Super-State Captain for her performances. The girls coach, Elizabeth Sundberg-Kremer, also earned Girls Soccer Coach of the Year after becoming Lincoln City Champions, District Champions and going to the state final for the 2022-23 season. With Hogg deciding to graduate early to play in her inaugural season at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the other varsity goalkeeper, Maggie Hayes, being a senior graduating spring 2022, the girls needed to find a new goalkeeper quickly. 

That was until junior exchange student Johanne Hagen stepped in. Hagen has been playing soccer for 11 years in Norway before becoming an exchange student. Back in her hometown of Trondheim, Norway, she describes playing soccer to be very different.

“In Norway there are no school sports, it’s only club sports. The clubs there are really cheap. It’s like $20 a month,” Hagen said. ”In Norway, it’s based on where you live. But once you turn like 11-12 you all switch teams to go to better or worse ones (teams).” 

Besides the differences in the local soccer programs, language is also a big barrier for Hagen. While Hagen can speak English fluently in conversation, the soccer lingo is quite different. 

“In Norway it was easier to talk to your teammates because you knew the language and you knew the phrases to say, whereas here it is hard to talk and direct my defenders because I don’t really know what to tell them,” said Hagen.

To help Hagen overcome this challenge, her goalkeeper coach, Tyler Rose, made a phrase diagram for Hagen to learn the lingo of the game in English. 

Playing sports and having a social life when you don’t know anyone can be a challenging endure. For Hagen, she is trying to balance how she spends her days. 

“Now I am with friends all of the time. I’m with the soccer team and then I’m with my other friends after the soccer team. But at the same time during soccer season I feel like I have less time for friends outside of soccer,” said Hagen. 

As her teammates agree, Hagen wishes to go back to Morrison Stadium and hopefully have another memorial run to the state final. With a current record of 6-6 the girls season hasn’t planned out the way that they wanted, but with two games in the future the girls can show the rest of Nebraska why they are called the Agents of Chaos.