Molony looking to add stability to Jenkins girls soccer

George Jenkins has a storied history in girls soccer. Since the beginning of girls soccer in the 1994-95 season, the Eagles typically have been one of the elite programs in the county and often the state.

From 2005 through 2013, Jenkins was in the state semifinals six times, winning one state title and finishing runner-up three times.

Cindy Schofield held the state scoring record for about 20 years. Kayla Grimsley, Jesse Scarpa and Schofield are on the short list in any discussion of the greatest girls soccer player to come out of Polk County. (Add Lakeland Christian's Bri Folds, and the list probably doesn't get any longer.)

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For all its success, coaching stability – especially in the past seven years – has been elusive.

Since the 2002-03 season, which began a stretch in which the Eagles have made the playoffs every year except for 2018, there have been 10 coaches: James Cross, Christine Farrar, Joe Lenard, Marissa Kazbour, Greg Winkler, Dominic Stross, Grimsley, Alexi Cortez, Taylor Cool and athletic director Jestin Bailey, who stepped in for the season when Cool left just prior to the start of the season.

And even in the first eight years of the program, there were at least four head coaches.

Farrar's and Lenard's four-year stints are the longest by any of the head coaches.

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In comparison, Winter Haven has had just four coaches since the beginning of girls soccer, and Lakeland Christian has had just two.

Jake Molony is hoping to change that pattern and give the program some coaching stability. Bailey tabbed Molony, who has just been hired as a teacher at Jenkins, as the new head coach.

"So that was the big key for me was just trying to find someone who's going to be a teacher on campus and wants to be here for the next X amount of years," Bailey said.

Molony expressed the same goal.

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"I definitely want to stick around," he said. "That was the goal. It's definitely somewhere I wanted to be, and I'm looking to definitely restore it to what it was like when I was a kid. I used to remember it was feared. They had a lot of the girls that I had known growing up and they were just incredible."

Molony is more than just a place-holder. His soccer pedigree as a player is well-known in the county. He was the The Ledger's boys soccer player of the year in 2014 – his brother Tanner won in 2017 – and he also played a year in the Developmental Academy in Clearwater.

In college, he played for Lee University, where he graduated in 2018, and last summer he earned his master’s in physical education from South Florida.

Molony, who coached club teams, proved himself to Bailey after he became an assistant about a month into the season.

Bailey allowed him to run practices, and Molony seized the opportunity. With the help of fellow assistant Tori Hunt, who is expected to remain with the program, he took charge.

"We went after it, and I kind of took over," he said. "I just waited for them to tell me not to do something as in, 'Hey, you're going too far with it,' as in 'You shouldn't assume a role.' The girls need some guidance and stability. We have great players on the team. I think we've had great players. There's always great players to come in at Jenkins. It's just they haven't had a lot of stability and structure. All I did was try to provide that and kind of nudge them in the direction of 'Hey, we can be a winning team.' And I think they responded pretty well."

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Bailey was suitably impressed.

"He did a great job just communicating with the girls, breaking simple drills down, being able to talk to them, relate soccer wise to them, running the sessions," he said. "You knew what the team plan was for what we wanted to do during the week. And he came in when we needed some help, that's for sure."

Jenkins was 5-7-1 in late January then won six in a row en route to winning the district title and advancing to the regional finals. The Eagles' playoff wins were their first playoff victories since 2013.

So without a doubt the talent is there. The Eagles throughout the recent years have remained one of the top teams in the county but have lost their perch at the top and stopped being a final four contender.

Molony is looking to change that, and the trip back to the top might not be that far of a journey.

Roy Fuoco can be reached at roy.fuoco@theledger.com. Follow him on Twitter: @RoyFuoco.