Sophie Jones poses with her teammates in a tutu, an elephant onesie, and a sign around her neck that reads “I couldn’t make JV for the past three years.” She’s the second-ranked girls’ soccer recruit in the nation, but that doesn’t exempt her from the annual initiation rite on the Menlo School girls varsity team.
Because she’s technically a first-year varsity player, Jones was subjected to wearing (and being photographed in) a crazy costume ahead of the team’s first league game of the season. In hopes of earning a college scholarship, she had skipped high school soccer through her junior year in order to play at the highest level of the club game — first for the De Anza Force, and most recently for the new San Jose Earthquakes Girls’ Academy. Having recently signed for Duke, however, she opted to lead Menlo this winter.
“I honestly never thought I’d do it,” she says. “I always went to the meetings, and I was like ‘Yeah, I’ll talk to my coaches about it.’”
Those coaches had always said no, and not without reason. High school soccer is more physical and less technical than the highest club levels, which can hinder elite player development. Since the Bay Area’s top players often stay in the club system, Sophie could have been put at a relative disadvantage by playing for Menlo. That is, until this year.
“This year, almost every single girl on my team is playing [high school],” says Jones. “I never played it before, so I might as well do it.” With the blessing from the coaches at Duke, she had little hesitation.
Her decision is many things, depending on whose perspective you adopt. For skeptics, it’s a waste of incredible talent; for Jones, it’s an “opportunity to work on things that I didn’t really work on for the national team,” like her dribbling skills and touch out of the air. At once, it is entirely reasonable given the security of her commitment to Duke, and still a tad absurd that the United Soccer Coaches’ Player of the Year should compete against second-sport athletes and JV call-ups.
The seventeen-year-old is “objectively better than every other person on the field,” says junior teammate Bella Guel. “It’s her composure on the ball. It makes her stand out.” Most of the time, Jones can float through games at half-pace and still bag a goal or two.
Similarly, the Menlo Knights have cruised to a league title under Jones’ leadership. With an 8-0-2 record, they’ve had few real tests. In one game, Sophie scored a hat-trick in the first ten minutes, and she is usually replaced by backups with plenty of time to spare. Many matches, says Guel, have been like a “massive game of keep-away.” In fact, coach Ross Ireland thinks the team has a tendency to overplay.
“There’s too much ball movement in key areas,” he says. As the Knights prepare for their first-round postseason match on Saturday morning, he wants Jones to be more selfish going forward: “We have one main dribbler, and I want the ball at her feet most of the time.”
Thus far, Jones has almost been too selfless. “She’s really respectful of her teammates, to the point where, too often, she’ll pass when she could dribble and score,” says Ireland. “And we just want her to dribble and score.”
Jones, however, isn’t interested in embarrassing opponents with skill-runs. “That’s not in my nature,” she smiles. “I’m just trying to get everyone involved. Seems it’s working — we’re winning.”
Still, she manages to have a little fun here and there. Says Guel: “She casually nutmegs people all the time during practice. You’ll just be walking, and all of a sudden you’ll be ‘megged. She exposes everyone from our coaches to the refs.”
Playing for Menlo, Jones can finally relax a little. Having been scouted by college coaches since eighth grade, she’s had few off-days in years. She’s missed holidays for soccer, she’s missed birthdays, and she’s missed a lot of school. Even during the summer, she has been spotted doing footwork drills by herself at Menlo. It’s almost weird, she says, to stay in California for so long without having to fly across the country for a tournament.
But the point of high school, says Guel, “is to enjoy it.”
Most important, though, is that Jones stays healthy, especially with an impending call-up to the United States U-20 national team. Having played every minute in the U-17 World Cup in Uruguay last November, there will be high expectations for her at the U-20 camp in Spain. Suffice to say, “she’s got bigger fish to fry,” says Ireland. Thankfully, “she has a great sense of it.”
Opponents, however, have specifically targeted her. “At times, when I touch the ball everyone is like, ‘Swarm!’ and I’m like: ‘Oh my gosh!’” she says. As such, Ireland moved her from the midfield, where she plays for the national team, to the front line. “If she only has to beat one or two up top, she’s got a good chance,” he says.
Of course, she has a license to roam. “She literally has no restrictions,” says Guel. “I tease her about it a lot, because she’ll wander all the way over to my position [on the wing] and leave a gap in the middle.”
Often, though, she’ll find her home right back into the middle of the park. “She likes it there,” says Ireland. Even though she doesn’t throw herself into any crazy challenges, she’s still among the hardest working players on defense. “I had always played forward for my club when I was younger and never had to do any defense,” she says. “I made it a point of something that I really wanted to work on.” She says she’s learned a lot by watching French midfielder N’Golo Kante (who plays for her favorite team, Chelsea), and has embraced the defensive discipline necessary to play in the role of defensive midfielder. “Next thing, I’ll be center-back,” she laughs.
Rumor has it she might even play some goalkeeper at tomorrow’s opening playoff match. During Menlo practices, she often volunteers to go in goal for shooting drills, just for fun, but those skills might be of use now that the team has lost their starting keeper to injury. If the game goes to penalties, Sophie volunteered to put on the gloves.
San Jose Earthquakes Girls’ Academy director Andres Deza, however, thinks that Jones has a long career ahead of her in the midfield. “If she wants to continue to play after Duke, I’m sure she’ll have a way,” he told Quakes Talk.
Jones has played for Deza at the club level for roughly five years, but her departure from the Girls’ Academy program to play high school was a disaster for his U-19 team. “Sophie was the first…all of a sudden, the top three players left…then six or seven…then the rest are like: ‘Who am i going to play with?’” he said. Now, they have “second or third tier players.”
Moreover, he added that Sophie will be ineligible to return to the academy team for the remainder of the spring season due to US Soccer rules regarding high school soccer. “It’s a big problem,” he says. “Either US soccer relaxes the rules, or we’ll have to [prevent players from playing high school].”
Nonetheless, he hopes Jones will have a place to return to in San Jose after her Duke career. He’s been pushing for the Quakes to launch a professional or semi-professional women’s team, and is “hoping it gets approved soon.”
Jones, for one, welcomes the notion of a professional career. “That would be incredible, playing with people you’ve watched on TV. I can’t even imagine. One day, that would be such an amazing experience.”
First, though, she’s got to face Live Oak High School in the playoffs Saturday.
