BY WIL CREWS
SPORTSCREWS@
OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
AUBURN —
The varsity Lee-Scott girls soccer team captured the AISA Class 3A state title by defeating rivals Glenwood, 1-0, in Montgomery April 21.
“For most of them, it was their first state championship, so they were really excited and proud of each other,” said head coach Eric Faison. “It was a picture of everybody playing their part, everybody doing their job and getting it together with the chemistry and team is what won that game. It was fun.”
Finishing the regular season with a 13-3-1 record, Lee-Scott had done enough to secure a first-round bye in the state tournament. Its second-round matchup came against Ft. Dale, who advanced through the first round following a convincing 7-0 victory over Morgan Academy. Lee-Scott defeated Ft. Dale in the regular season, which, according to Faison, may have led the girls to letting their guard down.
“We handled them pretty easily in the regular season,” he said. “But they were well-coached and ready to be out there.”
The Warriors and Ft. Dale fought evenly for the duration of regular time and the game advanced to penalty kicks to determine a winner. Although Faison had employed two goalkeepers for the majority of the season, he opted for eighth-grader Olivia Murchison over 11th-grader Allie Starr to stand in goal for the game’s final moments.
“They are both kind of equally talented and have unique skillsets,” Faison said of his goalkeepers. “I made the decision to leave [Olivia] in goal because she is really quick — she has more of [a] cat-like first step.”
Ultimately, Murchison saved the first three shots she saw as Lee-Scott won in dramatic fashion, connecting on three penalties to Ft. Dale’s none.
“For [Murchison], it was probably an unimaginable boost in confidence,” Faison said. “You try to keep your game focused on the game in front of you but we were not expecting it to be that close. I think it really woke us up.”
Following Ft. Dale the Warriors faced a familiar foe in Glenwood. The two teams split the regular season series 1-1 and Faison said he knew the two intimately familiar teams were in for a tightly contested matchup.
“Going into that game it was kind of a toss-up,” Faison said. “It was a pretty level game as far as talent and all that. We just had to go out there, relax and do our thing. I think, at that point, the game was more mental than physical.”
For the championship game, Faison made what could be considered a risky move — changing the tactics he had used all season for a setup that focused on taking away Glenwood’s two main offensive threats.
“We kind of did a few things differently that game that I think the strategy and tactics went in our favor and according to plan,” Faison said. “It was interesting, Glenwood had two really strong offensive players, and our deal was we are going to shut the game down, take it away from them and make someone else beat us. So I moved two of my best players to central defense andsaid, ‘Your job is to shut them down.’ They did that.”
The switch proved fruitful for Lee-Scott as the Warriors dominated possession for much of the contest. As the game inched into its second half, however, the two teams remained deadlocked at nil-nil.
“We controlled possession, we had multiple opportunities and really controlled the game, but we could just not get it in the net,” Faison said.
Eventually, Lee-Scott escaped the game with a 1-0 victory — and a second state championship in three years. Eighth-grader Emmie Mills, Lee-Scott’s leading goal scorer all season with 19, scored the winning goal for the Warriors in the 75th minute.
According to Faison, this year’s state championship felt different from the one the Warriors won in 2021. Then, Lee-Scott upset 12-0 Tuscaloosa Academy in a game that no one expected them to win. This time, Lee-Scott had the CV to prove they belonged there.
“The one we won two years ago, we were playing a team that was 12-0 and there was really little chance we were going to win that game but we did,” he said. “So, I felt the intensity of that emotion was different from what we felt this year.”
The senior-less Lee-Scott was led offensively this year by Mills, Delaney Faison (15 goals), Merrill Huddleston (nine goals), AJ Spillman (five goals) and Kaitlyn Drake (four goals). The Warriors posted a 3:1 goals to goals-conceded ratio, netting 66 goals and allowing just 22 in total.
Going forward, Faison and his team will celebrate the title before refocusing what is a young squad on the next season. But the state title belongs once again to the Lee-Scott girls, and the future is bright.
“It’s a very talented, young group, and we are going to have that same team for the next three or four years,” Faison said.