Taylor Campbell is a self-described “boring person.”
Try selling that to the teams she played against this year and you probably won’t make a nickel.
The Edinburg Vela junior forward scored 45 goals this season, bringing her career mark to 117, and led the SaberCats to a tie for the District 31-6A title with Donna North. For her dominant performance this season — which was cut short by one regular season game and consequently the postseason — Campbell was named The Monitor’s All-Area Girls Soccer Co-Offensive Player of the Year for the 2019-20 season.
“Getting onto the field and competing turns you into a whole new person,” Campbell said.
Campbell was certainly a new player this year. Still a dominant force as in the past two years, but this season she said she was more comfortable with the ball, and she added some muscle, which made a huge difference as opponents attempted to mark her, so often unsuccessfully.
“I trained a lot more than before and got physically bigger,” Campbell said. “My freshman and sophomore years I was constantly being marked by one, sometimes two players — in district sometimes by two or three — and they were constantly pushing and nudging me. So I took into consideration that I needed to get bigger, stronger. It really helped.”
Campbell was a good player by the time she reached high school, but it was at the end of her freshman year — and during a loss none the less — that she moved from good to great and gave the rest of the Valley a peak of what was to come.
During a first-round playoff game against Harlingen High, the SaberCats went down 3-0 in the game’s first 20 minutes.
“At halftime I told the team that we can do something, still. They had lost the previous year, like, 5-0, so (they) probably felt like it was happening again,” Campbell said. “I thought this was a moment to do something and let people see these girls can do something.”
Campbell went out and scored three second-half goals, tying the game with each goal before the Cardinals finally held on for a hard fought 6-5 victory.
“It was a really awesome moment. It was on a whole different level and I realized that there were things I could do,” Campbell said.
As a sophomore, she scored a career-best seven goals against Incarnate Word during a tournament game. This past season, she knocked in six against district foe Weslaco High.
This year, she had another breakthrough. Despite the ferocity she plays with, Campbell said she would still be hesitant to try new and different things. That changed during the season.
“I learned there was a lot more I could do than I thought I could, both in club and school,” she said. “I would be hesitant to try something because I would over think it. This year, I got over that mentality and was able to do so much more.
Campbell was one of three junior girls to eclipse the 100-goal mark this season. Also doing it was Donna North’s Gabby Aviles (49 goals) and Sharyland High’s Xochitl Nguma (68 goals). If they continue at the torrid pace they’ve been scoring, all three will have a shot to break the Valley’s all-time career scoring record of, unofficially, 160 goals.
“That would be awesome,” Campbell said. “When we leave, we will have done some great things.”
While she may consider herself boring, Campbell is definitely interesting. She has a lengthy set of superstitions — more like a routine — that she needs to go through before every match.
“I’m very superstitious. I do certain things for every single game and if I don’t, I swear I will have a bad game,” she said. “I put on my shin guard left first and (then) right. I have a bible verse on the left shin guard, I touch the bible verse first before putting them on. Then, I wrap my shin guards in two different colors — like purple and green.
“I always wear double socks, and I double knot my tight shoelace and triple my left shoelace. And before a game I always drink two full bottles of water.
Then, there’s the food — a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (“strawberry jelly with crunchy peanut butter.”)
“If I don’t eat the sandwich my teammates are all around offering a banana or whatever else they have,” she said.