By Jose Trujillo (@jAy_Ay_T):
She can be easy to overlook.
When examining the San Jose State women’s soccer season stat sheet, names like Dorthe Hoppius, Jamilecxth Becerra and Darriell Franklin stand out in all major categories — points, shots, minutes, assists and shots on goal — as these players lead in each one.
But if you look at the bottom of the sheet, the name of one of the most important Spartans will appear: Myia Wilkes.
Her season stat line will read zero goals, zero assists, zero points and zero shots. The only category Wilkes leads the team in is minutes played with 1446.
So how is it that such an important player, with so many minutes of playing time, manages to put up zeros across the board?
Well, what Wilkes does on the pitch cannot be put into a stat sheet. As the defensive stalwart for the Spartans, she leads the defense while keeping the backline organized and in the best position to prevent an opposing attack.
“It’s really helpful playing with her [Wilkes],” said freshman defender Lauola Amanoni. “She tells me what to do and where to line up. She is always on us, in a good way.”
Communication is a huge part of defending because being on the same page with your backline alone can win you games.
.It’s not a glamorous position, but Wilkes enjoys being the last line of defense.
“I like it when girls think they are going to score,” Wilkes said. “I like to break their hearts.”
And she is good at it. Her physicality and speed is why she is such a dominant defender and it is what led to Wilkes earning 2017 Mountain West Women’s Soccer All-Conference First Team honors and being voted defensive MVP by her teammates.
“She is so athletic, her pace is wonderful, she is a very physical player,” said head coach Lauren Hanson. “She’s our best one-v-one defender. Some people nicknamed her ‘the wall’ because it’s just so hard to get around her which is so invaluable to our team.”
That amount of physicality can oftentimes get her in trouble as Wilkes leads the team in yellow cards with six. No other Spartan has more than four. But to Wilkes, she would not play any other way because her physicality is how she has made name for herself.
“I’ve always been a really physical player, that is probably the best part of my game, how physical I am and how fast I am,” Wilkes said. “I was blessed with both and that’s how I like to play.”
It is easy to be misled by the box score, but Wilkes is an example of how much further the games go beyond statistics.
What she brings to the game cannot be put into numbers. You really can’t tally how many times she has organized the backline to prevent an attack, made an opposing player pass the ball instead of shooting or got in the opposing player’s head with her tough play.
“It is a hard position to play because you don’t get recognized,” Amanoni said. “But we know how important she [is] to our team. If they gave points for playing defense, she would have like 200.”
