Amidst all of the injuries, sickness, ice baths, lineup changes, roster shuffles, and ordinary ups and downs, the New Hope High School girls soccer team has found it can rely on an old standby.
New Hope coach Mary Nagy and the Lady Trojans actually have three experienced hands — Kayla Smith, Abby Wilson, and Bethany Vaughan — they can turn to when they need to protect a lead or to lock down the defense in front of goalkeeper Mackenzie Harvey. Smith, Wilson, and Vaughan played key roles last week in helping New Hope beat Saltillo in a shootout and Center Hill 4-2 in the first two rounds of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A North State playoffs.
For their accomplishments, Smith, Wilson, and Vaughan are The Dispatch’s Prep Players of the Week.
“They’re more comfortable with the lead and (believe) if we can get a quick start after that the pressure is off and all they have to do is hold their line of defense and we’re OK and we’ll be successful,” Nagy said. “The communication level has been much higher. Once that communication has begun, they have been almost impenetrable.”
At 5 tonight, New Hope (9-5-1) will lean on its back line to deliver another solid effort when it plays host to Germantown in the Class 5A North State title match. The winner will advance to play the winner of the West Jones-Pearl match at 3 p.m. Saturday at Madison Central High. Last season, West Jones beat New Hope 2-0 in the state title game. It was the Lady Trojans’ first appearance in the state championship match.
This season, New Hope has had to work through an assortment of maladies and changes. Nagy said the team flipped Wilson from forward to defense in November and December. She said the team also moved Smith from defense to forward and switched senior Sam Vogel from forward to midfield to defense. She said the shuffles were made in an effort to find the right combination after five players who played a key role in last season’s run are no longer with the team.
“They really bought into what (assistant coach) Will (Taylor) and I were trying to do to get them ready for January and the postseason,” Nagy said. “We were trying to find what helped jell us together position wise. Since January, we have learned a whole lot. We seemed to have finally found the winning lineup because we appear to be peaking at the right time.”
Nagy said there wasn’t any concern that Smith, Wilson, and Vaughan were going to have any problems once they were reassembled because Nagy convinced Vaughan she needed to return to the team to help offset the other losses the team suffered due to a variety of reasons. She said Vaughan, who is in her fourth season playing the sport, doesn’t have as much experience as Smith and Wilson, who have played together since they were 8 years old, but that she has matured as a player and has learned how to communicate (silently and vocally) on defense.
New Hope has relied on a three-back system ever since Nagy has coached the team. She said the three players are so successful because their skills complement each other. She said Smith is the loudest of the three, while Vaughan is good at containing attackers and taking angles to do her job. She said Wilson sees the field and reads the game extremely well, which helps the defenders cover for each other and be a solid final wall of defense.
Nagy hopes those three can come together again today in what will be the final home match of their prep careers. Against Saltillo and Center Hill, New Hope overcame the anxiety associated with the finality of a loss and stayed focused on defense.
“It was nerve-wracking, but you really can’t think about it like that,” Wilson said. “You have to think about it like this is the game and we have to do what we have to do and get it done.”
Vaughan said it is a sense of “unfinished business” because the team knew it could get this far again. She said she feels the defense communicates better than it did last season despite the added pressure Smith said is on them because each of the past two games could have been their last, as will be the case tonight.
Smith said it is hard for the defenders to mask their feelings, especially when teams score on them, but she said their job is to stay focused and poised so they rest of the team doesn’t get nervous. She feels the team played well against Center Hill and gave up one goal they felt was an offsides.
“We kind of prove ourselves, too, because we kind of get the job done back there,” Smith said. “Our experienced, maybe not together, has helped us.”
Another effort like the first two will push it back to the state title game for a chance to earn the program’s first title.
“They have to be smart and make sure they communicate,” said Nagy, whose team lost to Germantown 5-0 and 3-0 in the regular season. “Even though they are very good with silent communication and knowing where they will be, we need them to make sure they remind their outside wings on the midfield that they need to be back and in so they have that extra support. They don’t always need that extra support, but they will need that (today).”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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