Boston University sophomore Lucy Johnson, a Portland native, is enjoying a standout field hockey season with the Terriers this fall. (Photo by Eliza Nuestro/Boston University)

She was speaking over the phone, but Sarah Shute’s voice lit up when asked to describe Lucy Johnson’s game.

“The way that she plays is so exciting to watch,” said Shute, the first-year Boston University field hockey coach. “She’s very creative, and she’s so fast. And she can shoot from anywhere, which makes her really dangerous.”

What the Maine high school field hockey scene watched unfold for four years at Cheverus is now playing out at the national level. Johnson, a sophomore forward for the Terriers, is among the top scorers in the country, tied for 12th nationally with 13 goals going into Monday.

She has been near the top of the leaderboard all season, and in mid-October was third in goals. She scored in five of BU’s first six victories.

“It’s definitely very rewarding, and really feels like all the work that I’ve done to get here has paid off,” said Johnson, a Portland native. “For a few games, I was a little nervous coming into the season, seeing how it was going to go. Seeing my name in the starting lineup was definitely a little nerve-wracking at first.

“But once I settled in and just played a few games and got some more minutes in me, I was like ‘I can do everything, I’m capable of being successful.'”

Johnson’s been on scoring leaderboards since she arrived at Cheverus. She scored 28 goals as a freshman for a Class A championship team, set the state record with 49 goals as a sophomore, and set another Maine mark with 152 goals for her career.

But being at the top of a national list, at the Division I level? Even Johnson acknowledged some surprise.

“After the Bucknell game, one of my teammates’ dads was on the phone and he was like ‘Yeah, the announcer just said you’re second in the country.’ I was like ‘Wait, what?'” she said. “I got chills. I was very proud of myself in the moment.”

Johnson said she thinks about her teammates when she sees her name near the top of the list — teammates like her sister Lily, a junior midfielder who like Lucy was a Miss Maine Field Hockey winner at Cheverus, and who has played nine of the Terriers’ games and started five.

“Another thought that (comes) to my head is ‘Wow, I play with such amazing people,'” Lucy Johnson said. “We all set each other up for success.”

That kind of success wasn’t there for Johnson as a freshman, when she played 19 games but didn’t register a point.

“It was more of a struggle with confidence. In high school, it was a lot easier to be that star player, but also be a leader,” she said. “When you come to a different level where you’re playing with girls that are at the same level as you … everyone’s good. It’s kind of hard.”

Boston University sophomore Lucy Johnson dribbles up the field during a game against Dartmouth this fall. (Photo by Eliza Nuestro/Boston University)

Johnson said it was “motivating” to see where she needed to bring her abilities to make an impact with the Terriers. Last summer, she stayed sharp by playing in weekly games at Bowdoin and Boston College. She and Lily simulated the running tests they’d have to do at BU, further boosting their conditioning.

“We would either go to the gym and run on the treadmill, or we would go to the turf and do our run tests … or do repeats, just running up and down the field, or do sprint circuits,” Johnson said. “We would do some sort of running every single day. … We would run our mile test, the exact test, at least once a week or twice.”

Shute said that work has paid off.

“She came into preseason really fit, so her ability to perform at a high level for a long period of time is really stellar,” she said. “At our level, it’s really unheard of to play (forward) for an entire game and not be subbed off. But she has the ability to be effective for the full 60 minutes.”

That’s given her plenty of chances to show all the skills that made her the state’s most prolific scorer. She opened the season with a pair of goals in each of the first two games against Merrimack and Providence, and led the way in a 7-2 win over Bucknell with four goals.

“When she’s on the ball, she’s so explosive,” Shute said. “If she gets a half-step on somebody, she can cut the ball back and take it to the top of the circle and take a shot, or she keeps going. She has the ability to eliminate at a really high speed, which I think is hard to do.”

Maine saw it for years. Now the rest of the country is getting its chance.

“In our first few games, I (realized) I’m a Division I athlete also, and I’m playing against these Division I athletes,” Johnson said. “I’m fit to be here.”