Burnet grad Juliet Morales earns collegiate soccer honors

CAPTION: Burnet graduate Juliet Morales picked up postseason honors after playing her first year on the Huston-Tillotson University women’s soccer team. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

In her first season as a member of the Huston-Tillotson University women’s soccer team, Juliet Morales was named to the Red River Athletic Conference freshman team and her team’s Most Valuable Player.

Morales, who is a 2024 Burnet High School graduate, was the starting goalie for the Rams. She beat out a sophomore for the job.

She had a 0.682 save value percentage.

“I felt very proud of myself for my accomplishments as a freshman,” she said. “It went way better than I expected. I expected to play way less minutes.”

Playing college soccer isn’t easy, the goalie said. Most of the opponents had rosters featuring 30-40 players. The Lady Rams had 21 players. Still the numbers didn’t faze her thanks to growing up playing the sport.

She credits her dad, Abraham Morales, for introducing soccer to her.

“I grew up with it,” she said. “My dad played. I got attached with it. I’ve been playing since I was nine. I’d go to my dad’s games all the time. He’s always been there for me when I needed help with anything.”

Morales said she was prepared for playing college soccer thanks to her four years of playing on the Burnet varsity.

She said being a Lady Dawg “meant everything” to her because of her teammates, coaches, fans and the atmosphere. In the four years she wore the Kelly green, Burnet won two district titles and advanced to the playoffs three consecutive years.

“Because it made me grow even more as a player and a person,” she said. 

Part of that growing was learning how to be a leader, a quality that made Huston-Tillotson want her to join its program.

She said the coaches “wanted a leader on the field and off.”

Goalies are responsible for setting the defense by telling defenders where the ball is and where to move to help protect the goal. Morales said Huston-Tillotson coaches like “the way I talk to my teammates and sending them where to move.”

Another reason? Her strong leg that forces players to scramble back to mid field and regroup.

“I can usually kick to the 50 on punts,” she said.

Morales plans to become a math teacher and wants to coach.

“I feel like math is easier than English, science or history,” she said. “It’s my favorite thing, the way you solve problems.”

That might explain, in part, the attraction to being the goalie. Morales said she faces scorers who have a knack for finding the back of the net. She uses every bit of her frame to make it very difficult on opponents to score.

“I’m 5-3 and the goal is pretty big,” she said. “You have to guess at the right time. The way girls kick it is more accurate and more powerful. After I stop the goal, my teammates celebrate.”

She plans to return to Huston-Tillotson this fall.