A ‘dangerous’ team

High scorers, players of the year stand out

When Bentonville’s girls enjoyed their successful run in soccer from 2006-15, the Lady Tigers would not only have that season’s Gatorade player of the year on the field at times, but a future one was present as well.

When Kelly O’Connor won the award in 2006, April Miller was a freshman. Miller then won the award in 2009 with Tayler Estrada as a freshman teammate. Estrada then claimed the honor from 2011-13 — the first and only player to do that — and she did so the final two years while McKenzie Dixon, the 2014-15 winner, was on the field with her.

All four Bentonville standouts earned their spots in the Best of the West girls soccer team, which was chosen by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sports staff.

“There was a lot of overlap between all of them,” said Kristina Henry, who coached all four players at Bentonville and recently announced her retirement. “I think that is a part of what made us so dangerous when you look at all of those players.

“There was always a combination of players on the field that were dangerous. If a team felt it had to key on one certain player, it would free the other player up.”

Dangerous is a word Henry liked to use when she described the 11 girls on the roster. It goes back to soccer’s beginning as being a sanctioned sport by the Arkansas Activities Association, where Kelli Wilson bounced back from a knee injury to lead Fayetteville to state championships in 1998-99 and won the Gatorade player of the year for Arkansas both years.

O’Connor, who scored 104 goals at Bentonville, earned the honor in 2006, then it was Alyvia Rogers’ turn the following year after the threetime all-state player guided Rogers to the 2007 state championship. When Miller took her turn with the award in 2009, it began a string of seven consecutive years that a Northwest Arkansas earned the award as Anne Mitchell

of Fayetteville won it in 2010, followed by Estrada’s three-year reign and Dixon’s two-year honor.

“Playing with Tayler is one of the greatest gifts of being able to play at Bentonville,” Dixon said. “Watching and learning from her was the coolest experience. It was almost like a melodious tune that we would play in the midfield and we were able to pick off of each other’s brains and trying to collaborate together.

“She is one of the toughest girls players I ever got to play with, so seeing her resilience on the field motivated me to be that same resilient player. People were coming after her. They knew she was the player they needed to get and the player to mark, and she overcame that.”

Offensive firepower is in abundance with the team’s remaining players. Skylurr Patrick, who won the 2018 Gatorade player of the year award after leading Rogers to a state championship, had 45 goals and 14 assists that season, while Audrey Maxwell broke Siloam Springs’ single-season record with 42 goals as a junior in 2017 before she suffered a knee injury the following year.

Gentry’s Amber Ellis scored a state-record 68 goals as a freshman in 2014 and added 41 more in 2015 before knee surgery and other injuries limited her playing time, and she finished with 146 for her career. Harrison’s Carlee Spears, meanwhile, was a consistent scorer throughout a four-year career — between 26 and 39 goals all four seasons — and finished with a school-record 132 while being a four-time all-state player and leading the Lady Goblins to state titles in 2014 and 2016.

“I think that’s another thing you will find in this whole group,” Henry said. “What makes all these players so special is not only were they good players, but they also made their teammates very good.

“It would be a goal-scoring festival with this team. Let’s just go score goals. It would be amazing; it really would. When you get to coach players like that, it’s special. It makes your job easy because they are so hungry to take on the game in their own special way.”