LAKEVILLE, MASS. (WHDH) - A high school varsity soccer player in Lakeville helped score a goal for her team with an acrobatic flip throw she said she has been eager to perform all season.

Annie Smith is a captain on the Apponequet High School girls soccer team. She said she had been looking for the right time to attempt the flip throw, and that time finally came this week.

“Ever since I was young, I used to play gymnastics, and I quit gymnastics to do soccer, so I kind of combined it,” Smith said. “I’ve always been able to do the flip throw, but I never found the perfect time to do it.”

Samantha Berry, a freshman on the team, was on the receiving end of the throw.

“I was like okay, I just have to move around and get open for it. And as she was throwing it, I could tell it was basically going right to me so I moved around, faked out the defender, I jumped up and headed it in,” Berry explained.

That goal marked Berry’s first on the varsity team!

“We have three freshman on varsity this year, and it is so great to see. It is, like, a full circle moment when it’s a senior giving it to the freshman to score her first varsity goal,” — said.

Smith said she was surprised that the team scored a goal off of her throw-in.

“I did not expect us to score off of that at all, so I was not in the right head space,” Smith said. “I was so excited, and it was so great to celebrate with my teammates.”

Some of her other teammates said they have been waiting to see it come to fruition all season long.

“It was so good, i was like ‘wow,'” said Maeya Vlahopoulos, another Apponequet High School girls soccer player. Because honestly I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know it was going to go perfectly into Sam’s head.”

Smith said if the right moment comes along, she will be ready to attempt the flip throw again.

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