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IU had her. Now she’s UK’s. How SEC’s top scorer made the ‘best decision of my life.’

Jordyn Rhodes’ future was perfectly planned out.

She committed to the Indiana women’s soccer program in October 2016 during her sophomore year of high school, and followed through by signing her National Letter of Intent in November 2018 during her senior year, despite the Hoosiers choosing to make a coaching change just days before.

She was announced as part of IU’s 2019 signing class, and figured everything would still work out after Indiana hired Erwin van Bennekom as its new head coach in December 2018.

By spring 2019, those plans had disappeared.

Van Bennekom spoke over the phone with Jordyn and told her it wasn’t going to work out for her in Bloomington.

After being out of the recruiting process for about 30 months, and with her high school graduation looming, Jordyn was without direction.

“It wasn’t really my choice, but it was very stressful because I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m graduating high school in a few weeks,’” Jordyn said. “I was very stressed out, and it was super late in the recruiting process as well, so not a lot of schools have money or spots on the team just because it was so late, so I was freaking out.”

Jordyn could have gone to Indiana for school, but that would have meant no soccer.

She sent highlight tapes to schools that had reached out to her prior to her IU commitment, using a list that her father, Scott, had kept. Last-minute visits to mid-major and other smaller schools were made, but Jordyn wanted to play at the Power Five level.

Out of nowhere came Kentucky head coach Ian Carry, who heard about Jordyn’s situation from one of her club coaches.

Jordyn and Scott visited Lexington, and within days she became a Wildcat.

“I go back to the minute I found out that this could be a possibility. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘Whoa, this is a program-changer,’” Carry said.

Jordyn has lived up to the lofty expectations.

Since arriving at Kentucky in 2019, Jordyn, a junior forward, has scored 27 goals in 38 matches for the Wildcats.

No Southeastern Conference player has scored more goals in the same time frame.

Jordyn leads the Wildcats again this season with eight goals in nine games, and recorded her second career hat-trick during UK’s first win of the season against Marshall.

Despite SEC play starting for Kentucky on Friday with a 3-0 home loss to Texas A&M, a new-look Wildcats offense is seeking to generate even more goals for Jordyn and her teammates, with formation and position changes being made to help a cast-aside recruit, who is now one of the country’s best goalscorers.

“I ended up not going to Indiana, coming here and it was the best decision of my life,” Jordyn said. “I was so close to giving up, and just going to school and not playing soccer, which I can’t even imagine how my life would be if I did that.”

Jordyn Rhodes dribbles the ball past a pair of East Tennessee State players during an August exhibition match between the Buccaneers and Wildcats. Rhodes has scored eight goals in eight games for the Wildcats this season.
Jordyn Rhodes dribbles the ball past a pair of East Tennessee State players during an August exhibition match between the Buccaneers and Wildcats. Rhodes has scored eight goals in eight games for the Wildcats this season.

From Bloomington to Lexington

From an early age, Jordyn had a natural ability to score.

Carry describes her penchant for “scoring for fun” while playing club soccer in southwest Ohio for Cincinnati United and Cincinnati Development Academy after her family relocated from Florida.

Jordyn was a three-sport athlete at Kings High School, playing basketball, soccer and softball. She didn’t play high school soccer during her junior and senior years because of club requirements, temporarily causing friction with her high school teammate and twin sister, Sydney.

Now a junior midfielder at Thomas More University — an NAIA school in Crestview Hills, Kentucky — Sydney was upset that she wouldn’t play soccer with Jordyn past their sophomore year.

As their time in high school approached its end, the focus had long gone from annoyance to support, as Sydney and her family tried to help Jordyn sort through her scramble to find a school to play at.

“It was pretty devastating,’‘ their father, Scott, said. “Who’s got room, who’s got money, who’s got this, who even wants her? It’s kind of hard to watch your kid go through all of that.”

“She was so stressed and so upset about everything that she almost gave up soccer,” Sydney said. “We were all like, ‘No, you can’t let this one little thing set you back.’ You’ve worked so hard. You’re going to find a school that is going to worship you and you’re going to do amazing.”

Kentucky appealed to Jordyn because of its size and stature, but sacrifices were still necessary.

Because of the late stage at which Jordyn chose Kentucky, Scott said she went her entire freshman year at UK without any scholarship money, all while scoring eight times in the 2019 season.

“That’s a piece of adversity that will be with her for the rest of her life,” Carry said. “It was such a quick turnaround, but she came in here to Kentucky in 2019 absolutely flying and ready to go.”

“I got a little bit stronger after that, to say the least,” Jordyn added.

For Scott, it was the feeling that someone wanted Jordyn that convinced him to trust Carry.

“Having somebody who really wants your kid there after what had happened with Indiana. .... I left it all up to her and it was her decision,” Scott explained. “But, you know, (it) made me feel comfortable sending her there and finding a way to get her through that first year to get her to where she wanted to be.”

Kentucky’s Jordyn Rhodes recorded one goal and one assist during a 4-1 home win this month against Oakland University. Since her freshman season in 2019, Rhodes has scored 27 goals for the Wildcats, the most of any player in the Southeastern Conference.
Kentucky’s Jordyn Rhodes recorded one goal and one assist during a 4-1 home win this month against Oakland University. Since her freshman season in 2019, Rhodes has scored 27 goals for the Wildcats, the most of any player in the Southeastern Conference.

A defensive mindset

It took a defensive play for Carry to realize how good Jordyn is.

Last October, Kentucky held then-No. 14 Auburn to a 1-1 draw on the road. It was a valiant effort from UK, as the Wildcats played for more than 100 minutes of the 110-minute match with 10 players after an early red card.

While down a player, Jordyn played a square pass outside the Auburn penalty box, and the ball was dispossessed and sprung an Auburn counterattack.

As the Tigers’ breakaway formed, Jordyn turned and sprinted, performing a lung-busting run nearly 85 yards before making a last-ditch tackle to win the ball back, a moment of resolute recovery from the conference’s best offensive player.

“Oh my God, what a player we have here,” Carry turned and said to his coaching staff.

That defensive work rate is a new, distinguishing addition to Jordyn’s game.

“These goal-scoring players, they just really hover around that 20-30 yard radius around the top of an 18-yard box and there’s not much of a defensive bone in their body,” Carry explained. “This young lady, she’s got it now, on both ends of the field.”

It wasn’t always this way for Jordyn.

Her progression as a two-way forward went from never defending as a middle schooler and pretending to defend in her early high school days, to fully embracing the defensive tasks of a forward in college.

“Forwards are your first line of defense, so if they break me, or me and the other forward, that’s already one phase that they’ve broken and if they do that easily then it’ll just be just as easy for them to break down the other two (midfield and defense),” Jordyn said.

She credits a conversation between her, junior forward Hannah Richardson — who has scored 16 goals since 2019 — and assistant coach Paul Babba, in which Babba implored the duo to increase their defensive work rate.

“I rebooted myself and was like, ‘I need to help my team because they work so hard for me,’” Jordyn said. “I’m all over the field all the time, but I honestly do love defending just as much as I love scoring because defending gives you opportunities to score.”

New-look UK offense

The process of determining how to best use the attacking talent of Jordyn and her UK teammates has undergone several changes since 2019.

Carry has tried a front three with Jordyn, Richardson and redshirt fifth-year player Marissa Bosco. He’s tried a front two with Jordyn and Richardson up top, and Bosco operating as a false nine, which means Bosco drops deep to receive the ball farther away from opposing defenders.

Offensively-minded changes have also come to the UK defense.

Fifth-year player Julia Grosso, formerly a midfielder, switched to defender in 2018 and is now at left back with freshman Sara Makoben-Blessing at right back, positional alignments that capitalize on their ability to operate out wide and release the ball to attacking players.

“The whole team has been more confident on the ball to possess and build and get the ball to our forwards in these positions, rather than being more direct and just kicking the ball up,” Grosso said. “We’ve been more intentional this year, I think with our play.”

This season alone, Jordyn’s eight goals are almost more than the combined total of nine from UK’s opponents.

Jordyn has scored 27 of UK’s 66 goals since 2019, equivalent to more than 40 percent.

“She is the definition of a true forward, as in she’s smart in where she’s positioned on the field when we have possession,” Grosso said. “She knows exactly where to be at what time, she puts herself in great positions and it makes it easy to find her and she’s clinical in front of goal.”

“It’s going to be very difficult to break us down and it’s going to be very difficult to stop us from putting the ball in the back of the net,” Carry added, citing UK’s depth as another strength. “It’s difficult to predict where it’s going to come from if you’re the opposition. I think that the change in our shape is going to help us in regard to getting the best players on the field at one time.”

It’s also a strategy Carry believes will lead to wins.

During Jordyn’s time at Kentucky, the Wildcats have gone a combined 12-18-8 (W-L-D) overall and 2-13-4 in SEC play, recording just one conference win in each of the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

A 5-2-2 mark so far in the 2021 season, highlighted by a 5-0 win over Louisiana and a 6-0 win at Eastern Kentucky, has provided further evidence of UK’s potent attack.

For Carry’s strategy to work, and for the Wildcats to consistently produce winning results, someone will need to continue finishing in front of goal.

And for all the change that Jordyn Rhodes has seen, the responsibility to score still falls on her.

It’s something she welcomes.

“I loved envisioning what I could do here and what I could prove to myself ... just because of everything that had happened,” Jordyn said. “I was like, ‘I’m good enough to be here.’”

Kentucky’s Jordyn Rhodes soars for a header during the Wildcats’ 3-0 victory over Marshall in August. Rhodes scored a hat trick in the match, the second three-goal performance of her UK career.
Kentucky’s Jordyn Rhodes soars for a header during the Wildcats’ 3-0 victory over Marshall in August. Rhodes scored a hat trick in the match, the second three-goal performance of her UK career.

Friday

Texas A&M at Kentucky

When: 7 p.m.

Live video broadcast: SEC Network Plus

Records: Texas A&M 4-2-1 (0-0 SEC), Kentucky 5-1-2 (0-0)