For The Tribune
Seymour’s Taylor Bringle knows the importance of playing hard from the opening play to the final minute of a high school soccer match.
“You’ve got to play hard the whole way through,” Bringle said. “You couldn’t lay back. (Coach Greg) Musser always told us at the beginning of game, the first five minutes if we score, the next five he wanted us to continue to play hard.”
Soccer is the only sport Bringle played at Seymour, and she said she’s glad she joined the team.
“I enjoyed getting together with the girls and the team bonding and stuff,” Bringle said. “It’s always nice getting to know everybody. You become friends with everyone. Getting wins is nice knowing you did it together.”
Bringle began playing soccer in Seymour in eighth grade.
“That year gave me an idea of what soccer was like, but it was a lot different compared to high school,” Bringle said. “You get the idea of where to move around and stuff and the jest of it and everything, but when you get to high school it’s different. You have that understanding going into high school, but it’s a lot different.”
After playing on the junior varsity team for two years, she moved up to varsity her junior and senior seasons.
“I have always been outside back,” Bringle said. “I tried to get the ball out wide and take it up and then let the center defender have the ball. My job was to pretty much get out wide and open the field up.”
She said she enjoyed the physical aspect of soccer.
“It’s important to communicate because sometimes we can all get too condensed and a lot of people can start going after the ball and then it’s hard to get those passes in like we need to,” Bringle said. “Coach worked with us condensing more but not get so condensed to where we could not like make a pass, and spread out.”
She said it was nice to score the first goal, but you didn’t want to get too high and let up on defense.
“You had to remember not to get ahead of yourself,” Bringle said. “You have to remember just because we got a goal we still had to give it 100 percent. No letdowns.”
Over the past four years, Bringle has noticed an increase in the interest in the sport at Seymour.
“When I started they didn’t have enough for players to a fill JV team,” Bringle said. “Now they have to make cuts. This year is the best record we’ve had since Musser has been here and I feel it will continue to get better as new girls keep coming in.”
Bringle moved to Seymour from Brown County prior to her eighth grade, and said she is glad she attended Seymour.
“I feel my grades have gotten a lot better since I’ve moved,” Bringle said. “My teachers do a good job and they work with me if I need help with something. It’s nice.
“As far as looking back I’ll definitely miss my teachers, the friends that I have made. The seniors this year I’ve become really close to them so it will be different not being with them all the time. I’ve had good friends throughout the years.”
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Name: Taylor Bringle
School: Seymour High School
Parents: Keith and Nicole Lentz
Siblings: Haley, Kelsey, Brayton, Brook
Sports: soccer 4 years
Athletic highlights: coaches award, academic all-state
Plans after high school: attend Ivy Tech for nursing
Favorite food: pizza
Favorite TV show: Gray’s Anatomy
Favorite musician: Thomas Rhett
Favorite movie: Best Of Me
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