Transfer brought offense to Dulaney boys soccer team

He came, he saw, he scored — a whole lot.

To rephrase words often attributed to Julius Caesar after a decisive battle, Jordan Fields-Brown was all about laying waste to rival goalies when he arrived at Dulaney for his senior year after transferring from St. Paul's barely a week before the fall semester began.

Dulaney coach Danny Skelton knew exactly what he was getting in the 5-foot-3, 160-pound bundle of energy, who looks as much like a diminutive football scatback as he does a formidable goal-scoring soccer striker.

With strength, speed and skill, Fields-Brown instantly turned the Lions from a team that had trouble scoring — they were shut out six times last fall — in Skelton's debut 2015 campaign to one that was much more dangerous.

And no Lion was a greater threat to score than Fields-Brown, who netted 23 of the team's 32 goals this season, 72 percent of their total output, while adding six assists to the cause for a squad that doubled its wins from four to eight before bowing out of the Class 4A North Region playoffs in a 2-0 loss to Bel Air.

Skelton's expectations were very high for Fields-Brown, whom he coached at St. Paul's before leaving Brooklandville after the 2013 season.

"I've had talented players before, but never one who was so overwhelmingly such a go-to guy," Skelton said. "Any time you have a player of that caliber, you want him to be a leader like Jordan is."

Even so, the veteran coach, who led St. Paul's to the 2011 Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference title, could not have guessed at the time just how much punch Fields-Brown would bring to the pitch.

The 17-year-old's prowess was obvious from the first home game in early September, when Fields-Brown collected a pass from sophomore teammate Giorgio Gayleard, put three deft touches on the ball and slotted a shot to the corner of the goal in a key nonleague victory over Fallston.

He also scored the lone goal in big win over another Harford County foe, C. Milton Wright.

From Fields-Brown's perspective, Skelton is the main reason why he played so well with his new team.

"I just felt very comfortable here right away," Fields-Brown said. "And coach Skelton is the best. He's a very genuine guy. I would run through a wall for him because he has done so much for me. He really cares about me as a player and a person."

The admiration is mutual between coach and player.

"He has really matured the last couple of years," Skelton said. "He's a really respectful kid and very humble. He makes it easy for the other guys to like him."

It also helped that his freshman brother, Ashton Brown, earned a spot on, and contributed significantly to, the 2016 Lions.

Ashton Brown ended up logging significant playing time, a situation that could have strained their sibling relationship.

"I had to find the balance between just being an older player on the team and being his older brother," Fields-Brown said. "It wasn't always easy to do, but having him here is an added bonus."

Gayleard said that the Lions' acceptance of Fields-Brown didn't take long.

"It was the second day of tryouts," Gayleard said. "He was a quick learner. He made a great transition and really helped us offensively."
While he toyed with the idea of applying to the Naval Academy, Fields-Brown will instead stay even closer to home to enroll at Stevenson University next fall.

"I just thought that Stevenson fit me the best," he said. "It's a place where I can study sports management and business. It just seemed like a no-brainer."

While having two years of wrestling experience at the varsity level in the MIAA made Fields-Brown more difficult to handle for opposing defenders, he said he will not wrestle for the Lions.

But the physical nature of wrestling and his overall strength helped him on the soccer pitch.

"That's an area of his game that he improved," Skelton said. "He could play with his back to the goal while holding a defender off. It really helped his game."