By TODD FERTIG
TopSports.news
With three state championships, 16 semifinal appearances and 23 quarterfinal appearances, including 18 of the last 20 seasons, the Washburn Rural boys soccer program is one of the most successful in all of Kansas.
Washburn Rural senior Dylan Willingham is closing in on Rural's single-season and career scoring records. [Photo by Doug Walker/Special to TSN]
Year after year, it produces some of the best players in the state. Holding any type of record in such a program is quite an accomplishment.
Senior Dylan Willingham is on the verge of establishing himself as the program’s all-time greatest scorer. The next time Willingham puts a shot in the net, he will tie the school record for goals scored at 57. And he needs four goals to tie the mark for scores in a single season.
The Junior Blues have two more games left on the regular season schedule – at Topeka High on Monday, and at Blue Valley North on Thursday – and figure to play several postseason matches after that. The chances are high that Willingham will eclipse both records before he’s done.
“He’s one of the most talented kids to ever come through our program,” said Washburn Rural coach Brian Hensyel. “He has an unbelievable work ethic, wants to get better, super competitive.
“To get these records, he’s going to be up there with some of the great kids that we’ve had. It’s just cool to see a great kid like him, a really good student, be the person who could potentially hold those records.”
Last year’s Centennial League Player of the Year and an All-State first-team selection, Willingham now stands among the best goal scorers around. But it’s been a slow, steady build to this point. He scored just three goals as a freshman despite being a starter. He scored 12 as a sophomore, then 15 as a junior. He has scored 26 times thus far as a senior.
“When he was a freshman, I wouldn’t have thought of him as a goal scorer,” Hensyel said. “He played midfield for a couple of years. Now he’s playing forward. He was just a really good technical soccer player who has turned into a really good finisher.”
Willingham is excelling at scoring, but he doesn’t necessarily think of himself as a scorer.
“I was playing center-mid (my first two years) and I like to be more of a playmaker,” Willingham said. “But scoring goals is a fun thing to do. That’s the role that this team needs for me now, to play forward.”
Hardly a ball hog, Willingham also ranks high on the school list for assists.
“I think I play better as a whole when I just think about having us as a team winning, scoring goals as a team,” Willingham said. “In reality, it doesn’t matter who scores the goal. It just matters that the ball goes in the net.”
Hensyel said Willingham’s personality has helped him reach this point as a player.
“Sometimes when he was younger, he was a little bit tough on himself, if he made a mistake or missed a shot or whatever,” Hensyel said. “But it’s been pretty rare for me to see a team rally around one guy as much as I’ve seen them rally around him. His biggest fans are his teammates. They’re like, ‘We’ve got to get the ball to Dylan! We need to keep feeding him!’ ”
Willingham is chasing the season goals record of 30 set by Austin Halsey in 2014. He needs just one goal to match the career total of 57 held by Halsey and Easton Bradstreet.
“To reach those kind of totals, it means, number one, you’ve got to probably be on the team for four years. And then you’ve got to play a big role for four years,” Hensyel said.
Willingham has been a starter for teams that finished third twice and fourth once in the Class 6A state tournament. The Junior Blues currently stand at 11-1-1 with their hopes set on adding a fourth state title to the history books.
Willingham is not thinking currently about where he will ultimately rank in school history, despite recognizing the records he stands to hold.
“It truly is an honor. I think it would be so cool to have that,” Willingham said. “But honestly, I just don’t want to think about that because the more I think about it, the more I could become selfish and want to score more goals, when in reality, winning is the only thing that matters.”
Willingham, also a three-time Class 6A state medalist in tennis, plans to play soccer and major in environmental engineering at the University of Nebraska-Omaha upon graduation.
