A move wasn’t enough to shake Taylor Renth’s confidence.
After all, the former Caledonia High School girls soccer standout moved from playing defense at the prep level to playing forward in her first year at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, so she didn’t have any reason to be concerned about moving to midfield for her sophomore season.
Renth had even less reason to question whether 2014 would be a breakout season for the Lady Rangers.
“The entire team this year came out strong in the preseason giving it 100 percent every practice regardless of the heat and if we had to practice four times a day,” Renth said. “Once we started playing games, we were moving the ball around a lot better and playing as a team rather than individuals.”
A new position for Renth and a new mind-set for the team has results in history-producing results. Already off to a school-record 7-0-2 start, Northwest made history earlier this week when it was ranked No. 19 in the NJCAA Division I Poll. It’s the first national ranking in the program’s 13-year history.
“To be unbeaten and nationally ranked is an honor and something we have worked hard for,” Renth said. “I knew we were going to succeed (this season) and go a lot further than the team did last season, but I didn’t know we would be undefeated or nationally ranked at the same time.”
Renth is one of six former players from Caledonia or Columbus high school who are playing for the Lady Rangers. Freshmen Brooke Lester, Sarah Jo Murphy, and Lydia Cross played at Caledonia High, while sophomores Katelyn Hicks and Jessica Thompson played at Columbus High.
Renth, Lester, and Cross have made the biggest impact, appearing in all nine games. Lester is the leading scorer of the group, with three goals and seven points. Renth has one goal and two points, while Cross has one assist.
Thompson has appeared in eight games, Murphy has seen action in seven, and Hicks has played in four.
“We’re on a crazy good ride right now,” Northwest second-year coach Levi Nunnally said. “I would have never thought at the beginning of the season we would be undefeated and also be ranked. I never doubted the girls would put in the work and we could be successful, but I didn’t think we necessarily be undefeated and ranked.”
Northwest has outscored opponents 29-2 and has seven shutouts. It will put its undefeated ledger and ranking on the line at 1:30 p.m. Saturday when it plays host to No. 11 St. Charles (8-1). The match will be the first top-20 showdown on campus.
Last season, Renth was a part of a team that went to the playoffs and posted its first winning record since 2006. But she said last year’s team wasn’t as prepared for the start of the season as this year’s team. She said all of the players trained hard in the preseason to make sure the Lady Rangers had plenty of depth. The result is the team doesn’t see a drop in its level of play when Nunnally make substitutions.
“It is paying off 150 percent because everybody worked hard,” Renth said. “We are a pretty stacked team if we have to sub in.”
Renth’s transition to wing midfielder fits with her level of fitness. Nunnally said he made the move to capitalize on Renth’s ability to cover a large area for a long period of time. He said he has been pleased with how well Renth and the other players from Lowndes County have contributed to the team’s fast start.
“(Taylor) is extremely fit,” Nunnally said. “She has to cover anywhere from 60-80 yards of one side of the field. Being as fit as she is, she is doing that quite comfortably.”
Nunnally said Lester is playing well and helping to anchor things as a center midfielder, while Cross, who is left footed, is using her work ethic to make an impression as an outside midfielder on the left side of the field. He said Thompson, Murphy, and Hicks all play in the back and haven’t received as much playing time as the others because he likes to keep his backs in a set rotation. The key, though, is all of the players have worked hard in practice to push each other, which has strengthen the chemistry and made it easier for everyone to jell.
“We’re going to try to keep a level head and not take any game for granted,” Nunnally said when asked how his team was going to respond to its first national ranking. “We can’t be looking ahead to the next opponent, even if we have already beaten them. We just have to keep that level head and that motivation during practice and the focus to look at the next opponent and do what we have to do.”
Renth doesn’t think that will be hard. The team already worked through a rigorous preseason, so she said it is time to reap the rewards from that investment.
“We still have to come out and give all we have,” Renth said. “It is one thing to be undefeated. It is another to stay undefeated. We want to work as hard as we can to maintain that position.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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