Effie Morrison wasn’t going to let her coaches’ words be swallowed in silence.
So after Mary Nagy and Will Taylor had their say at halftime with the New Hope High School girls soccer team trailing Vicksburg, Morrison spoke up for what she hoped wasn’t going to be the last time in the 2013-14 season.
“I was like, ‘Listen, those fans out there, our fans, their fans, they’ve all predicted what is going to happen,’ ” Morrison said. “(They think) we’re going to go out and we’re going to try to fight back and we’re going to lose 4-1 or 4-2. But we have to go out there and it is do or die, go hard or go home. We decided to do and we decided to go hard.’ ”
Morrison then went out and backed up her comments, spearheading a comeback with four goals in the final 40 minute to help New Hope rally for a 5-4 victory.
Coupled with a goal Saturday in a 4-2 penalty kick shootout against Oxford, Morrison played an integral role in helping New Hope (10-2-1) reach the Mississippi High School Activities Association North State playoffs for the first time in school history.
For her accomplishments, Morrison is The Dispatch’s Prep Player of the Week.
New Hope will try to make more history at 6 tonight when it plays host to Lewisburg. The winner will advance to the Class 5A state title game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Clinton High.
Morrison admitted she didn’t take it on her shoulders to go out and score four goals, something she remembers doing when she played in the Columbus park league. But the move from a wing midfielder to forward put Morrison in a prime position to cause havoc — if only she could get the ball.
There was no cause for alarm because Morrison made sure her teammates heard her throughout the half and knew how and when to get her the ball. The goals quickly followed.
“I knew I had to do what I knew how to do,” Morrison said. “I just knew I had to go up there and do it and show my teammates that I was willing to do what I had to do and that they needed to do hat they needed to do.”
Nagy never imagined Morrison, a junior midfielder/forward affecting such a turnaround. Still, she admitted New Hope is at its best when Morrison is fully involved attacking the goal. When that happens, she said something clicks and the rest of the Lady Trojans get energized, their passes find the mark, and the momentum turns.
That’s exactly what happened against Vicksburg.
“The message (at halftime) was, like Effie said, a quiet one,” Nagy said. “We sat there for probably 30 seconds to a minute in silence, and they sat there and looked at us like, ‘OK, which one of you is going to speak first?’ Will talked about us doing everything we don’t typically do and that in 40 minutes your game and your season was going to be over and it would be a long offseason because this wasn’t what our expectations were for the season.
“Like Effie said, she came in and she says, ‘This is the way it has to be. Our fans have probably given up on us. They think we have lost. We have to prove everybody in the stands wrong.’ ”
Morrison’s second half against Vicksburg is another sign of how far the program has come and how much she has matured. Nagy remembers Morrison, Kayla Smith, and Abby Wilson coming to soccer tryouts as sixth-graders in their Division II youth soccer uniforms. She believed then they were making a statement that they knew how to play soccer and they were ready to contribute.
A few years later, Nagy said Morrison had developed to a point she knew she belonged and she realized she could affect a match. Sometimes, though, she saw in Morrison a mind-set that was focused on getting her the ball and letting her do her things.
In her second season as a team captain this year, Morrison has left that player behind. In her place, Nagy said, is a Morrison who doesn’t hesitate to speak up to motivate her teammates, a Morrison who encourages the Lady Trojans, and a Morrison who praises her midfielders and the entire team for coming together to deliver, even when many of the fans might not believe a comeback is possible.
“There is lots of maturity,” Nagy said. “Now she realizes it is not all about Effie, like she said when she was younger. ‘Give me the ball and I am going to score,’ that was the mentality. She has realized as a high schooler that is not the way it works anymore. Like she said, she needs her midfielders to help her make that score, and we need each other. That is a big maturity thing in itself.”
Morrison smiled when she recalled how loudly she screamed to her teammates. She said it was so loud she thought her voice was going to go out. Good thing it didn’t because Morrison would have had to find a way to work her magic in silence. Rest assured, Morrison’s leadership skills would have helped her find a way to get it done.
“If my midfielders wouldn’t have kept their heads up and listened to me yelling for the ball, (we wouldn’t have been able to come back),” Morrison said. “There were several times it was me and the defender and all they had to do was split them (with the pass). Whenever I called for it they did it. I am thankful for that.
“I definitely have had my downfalls in some cases. But I think I have matured, for the most part, from being able to go from leading without a (captain’s) band to leading with a band. Either way, I have always felt I was a leader. Now that I am older, I think I am more of a leader off and on the field.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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