ECNL champion Bella Smith, top 2024 Wichita recruit, finds joy in high school soccer
At the elite level Wichita native Bella Smith has reached in girls soccer, the sport is high-stakes, high-pressure and high-stress for nine months of the year.
That’s just the reality of being a team captain for an Elite Clubs National League championship squad who has earned All-American honors, been deemed a blue-chip prospect in the class of 2024, and considered for inclusion as a midfielder on the Under-16 United States Girls’ National Team.
So when Smith, a sophomore at Goddard Eisenhower, decided she wanted to play Kansas high school soccer for the first time this spring, she was initially overwhelmed by the expectations.
“I didn’t want to have all of this hype and come in and everyone think, ‘Oh, she’s not that good,’” Smith said. “But then after a couple of games, I realized I have to stop worrying about what other people think. I just have to play my game and have fun out there because that’s when I play my best.”
Playing with Eisenhower this season has been a revelation for Smith: she’s playing more relaxed, having more fun and has fit in perfectly on what was already a lethal Eisenhower attack.
That potency was on full display on Thursday in Eisenhower’s tidy 5-0 victory over Andover Central in a Class 5A regional championship game. The Tigers improved to 16-1-1 this season and advanced to the Class 5A quarterfinals against Andover next Tuesday.
“Early on, Bella was trying to do too much and she was taking it too seriously,” Eisenhower coach Roger Downing said. “As soon as she started to relax and play her game and play off her teammates, she started to have fun out there and that’s her biggest key.”
Performing in a regional championship game doesn’t seem as daunting when you’re used to the pressure of playing your best routinely in front of college coaches on the sidelines of ECNL games.
But along with the accolades come expectations, which Bella’s parents, Will and Lori, continue to grapple with.
“We’re her biggest fans, but we’re also her biggest critics,” Lori said. “It’s challenging as a parent when she’s rising like this to recognize the role from being a parent to being a coach to being a fan. I’ve been working on it, but it’s hard sometimes.”
“It’s because you know your daughter’s capability,” Will continued. “Everyone else out here sees Bella and thinks she’s amazing and she is. She’s fantastic. Her ball placement, her pace, her unselfishness, that’s why she’s a U16 kid. But it’s hard… because we know what she’s capable of.”
Bella is frequently invited to ID Center camps hosted by the US Youth National Team and participated in one in Kansas City the night before Thursday’s regional championship game. She figures to be a standout player once again this summer on the ECNL circuit for KC Athletics, the surprise winner of last summer’s U15 ECNL national championship.
When June 15 rolls around and Division I coaches can begin contacting her, it is expected Bella will have her pick between some of the best programs in the country.
“She really is next level,” Downing said. “She’s that good.”
Bella’s emergence at age 16 as a premier soccer player is rather remarkable considering she didn’t start playing the sport until she was 8 and started out as a goalkeeper. But she always had the work ethic and had no problem spending countless hours training at a soccer field.
During the club season, Bella and her family drive to Kansas City and back to Wichita three times a week so she can train with her ECNL club. She also works with Kevin Jackson, a trainer at Ultimate Soccer Academy in Wichita, in her spare time during the high school season.
“You can have all of the talent in the world, but you still have to put in the work and that girl puts in a crazy amount of work,” Will said. “I always tell her the soccer games should be the easiest days of the week.”
Bella has not put up gaudy statistics because Eisenhower doesn’t need her to. The Tigers are loaded with talent and the backbone of the team is the five seniors who are committed to play college soccer. Kaitlyn Erwin is one of the top playmakers in the area, while Bri Henning is also a threat and the senior trio of Abby Bachman, Kendra Brungardt and Abi Welch make up arguably the most dynamic back line in Class 5A. Freshman Mackenzie Jordan has also added a scoring punch to the offense.
Eisenhower was already a very good team before she joined, so Bella is more than happy to play her role of bossing the middle of the field and trying to help a team with aspirations of reaching the program’s first state championship game.
“I love the coach, I love the girls and I love the seniors,” Bella said. “I love playing with these girls because it is a true team effort. Nobody can do it all by themselves. There is no ‘I’ in team. No one player is the reason why we’re winning all these games. It’s because we play so well together as a team.”
Eisenhower has a chance to exact revenge once again on the only team to defeat the Tigers this season in Tuesday’s 6 p.m. quarterfinal showdown against Andover. After the Trojans (15-3) won 2-1 on March 30, Eisenhower bounced back to win 4-0 on April 28.
No matter how the final week of the season shakes out, Bella has no regrets about playing high school soccer for the first time.
Not only has it been refreshing, but it’s restored the fun back into the game.
“I really think this season has helped her see the game can still be fun,” Lori said. “Now we’ll try to take the fun part back to club and remember it’s just a game at the end of the day. Everyone is going to make mistakes, but I think she’s starting to recognize the pressure isn’t always on her to be perfect.”
Kansas high school girls soccer regional championship scores
In a Class 6A regional final played in Manhattan, Derby stunned the hosts by dominating the opening 20 minutes which culminated in the game’s first goal, a 1-0 lead that the Panthers took to halftime.
But Manhattan jolted to life in the second half and was too much for Derby to contain in what became a 2-1 victory for the Indians. Derby finished its season with an 11-7 record.
The other 5A quarterfinal features the Maize derby, as Maize South (15-1-2) will host Maize (15-3) in a 6:30 p.m. game on Tuesday. Maize held off Bishop Carroll, 1-0, on Thursday, while the Mavericks had no problems in a 6-0 win over Goddard.
In the Class 4-1A regionals, Circle survived a nail-biter, 2-1, against Wichita Trinity in what was the closest game of the evening. Mulvane (3-1 win over Rose Hill, McPherson (6-0 win over Collegiate) and Buhler (3-0 win over Augusta) had few issues in their wins.
Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchups feature Buhler (10-7-1) at Mulvane (14-3-1) and Circle (12-5-1) at McPherson (14-3-1) with both 6 p.m. kickoffs.
This story was originally published May 20, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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