Darian Jenkins Ready for More After Strong First Season with OL Reign
OL Reign forward Darian Jenkins continues to hold high expectations for herself in her fourth professional season. With the lessons of last season’s hard-fought success and a big boost from her offseason experience in the W-League, Jenkins is ready to give the club a big boost during the NWSL Challenge Cup.
Jenkins arrived to OL Reign full of confidence and ready to make her mark on the league. In the season opener, Jenkins announced her presence with gusto, taking on Houston defender Taylor Comeau and scoring in a 1-1 draw on the road.
A goal in her club debut. It was the sort of start that Jenkins was eager to continue, but nagging hamstring issues kept her out of the next two matches. Then, against Houston at home on June 2, Jenkins went down seconds after playing a through ball that led to a Bethany Balcer goal, ultimately needing to be removed after 33 minutes on the pitch.
“I’ve never even had soft tissue injuries before, knock on wood,” Jenkins said. “Last year was unfortunate in that matter. It’s so hard, mentally, getting in and being confident that I would be starting and feeling like I could do a lot for the team, building back up to that confidence and the match fitness you miss when you’re out for more than three weeks, which happened four different times last year. That was really difficult, but I do feel like toward the end of the season when I wasn’t getting injured all the time I felt like I had a lot of good momentum.”
Jenkins didn’t start another match until September 7. Her return, however, proved to be memorable. The club was in fifth place in the league table, one point behind Utah and was set to take on last-place Orlando at home.
A twelve-minute span to start the game showcased Jenkins’ potential as a goal-scoring threat. In the third minute of the match, the forward ran on to a lateral pass from Balcer and scooped a low shot past Ashlyn Harris. She beamed as she embraced her teammates, but wasn’t done yet. In the 12th minute, Jenkins dribbled past a defender and found herself six yards wide of the left post and mere feet from the goal line. She fired a shot that ricocheted off the crossbar and dropped into the far side of the net for her second goal of the evening.
She might have scored more in that first half, but a massive thunderstorm halted the match 11 minutes after Jenkins’ second goal, causing a nearly two-hour break in play. When play resumed, Jenkins did not score again, but it didn’t matter; OL Reign won and was back in a playoff spot with five matches to play.
“That game was a long time coming,” Jenkins said. “I like to go one-on-one and dribble and take obscure shots. It was great to be able to do that. It was a big confidence boost for me to feel like myself for a bit. It’s more of a mental battle for me, coming back from injuries like that. I feel good right now. Hopefully I can build off that game.”
Jenkins started all five of the club’s remaining matches, scoring a goal in a 2-2 draw against Orlando on the final day of the season.
Jenkins’ season was a microcosm of OL Reign’s—fighting through injuries and absences, the club persevered to reach the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
The experience made Jenkins and her teammates tougher.
“I think ‘warrior mentality’ is a great phrase for it,” Jenkins said. “No matter what happens, battle by battle we’re going to show up. That is definitely something that we’re going to be able to use (in the NWSL Challenge Cup). Mentally and emotionally, we’re encouraging and have each other’s backs. We can battle through all the small things that are going to happen. Even moving to Montana and switching things up at the last minute, we’ve all had such a good attitude about it because of everything we’ve already been through. If anything, it’s just going to help us in the long run.”
Following the end of the 2019 season, Jenkins went abroad to play for Melbourne Victory FC in the W-League. She scored five goals and added two assists in 12 league appearances, helping the club to a second-place finish and a trip to the semifinals.
With the added experience of living and playing abroad combined with the lessons from 2019, Jenkins is hopeful that the Challenge Cup can serve as a boost for the league, as well as an opportunity to further the ongoing discussions that have taken center stage in America in recent weeks.
“Obviously, we want to win,” Jenkins said. “It is a condensed schedule, but it’s going to end up being a good thing to get all these games in. I think it’s huge for women’s sports and women’s soccer specifically that we’re the first sport back that people can tune in and watch games in the U.S. I can’t wait to see what that does for us in general. I know a lot of teams are planning on wearing warm-up jerseys that have ‘Black Lives Matter’ and the names of people who are victims of police brutality and excessive force on their warm-up jerseys or on tape. I think it’s important that we are able to keep that conversation going during the tournament and moving forward. I really want us to be able to. I hope that the league and players recognize that this is something that needs longevity. We’re not going to go back to what was normal, which is that we would see an awful video and not speak about it anymore, that we keep these things in our conversation in our league as much as the LGBTQ+ community is and the fight for equal pay. This needs to be as important as those other things we constantly fight for. Hopefully, we can keep shining a light on that and the other things we believe in while we’re doing really well in the tournament.”