BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
FOR THE OBSERVER
HUNTSVILLE — For the past week, the Lee-Scott Academy girls’ soccer team has made a habit of leaving things to the last second and living life on the edge. And with a shot at the team’s first Alabama High School Athletic Association state title on the line, it all came down to a penalty kick shootout.
In the end, two saves from goalkeeper Olivia Murchison and penalty kicks from Merrill Huddleston, AJ Spillman and Charlee Huddleston powered the Warriors past a 2-2 draw in regulation and overtime to claim their first AHSAA 1A-3A girls’ soccer state championship.
Spillman, a star freshman forward for LSA, was named the tournament’s most valuable player.
It is LSA’s second overall girls’ soccer state championship, with the first coming in 2021 when the team was still a member of the Alabama Independent School Association. With the 3-1 penalty kick win on Friday, the Warriors finish the season with a 17-4 overall record, making it the most successful girls’ soccer season in school history thus far.
In an interview from his vehicle heading home from Huntsville, LSA girls’ head soccer coach Eric Faison – who had coached most of the players from the time they were “nerdy little 11-year-olds with glasses” on his club soccer team – praised his young team that includes his daughter, Delaney, a senior, for their collective achievement.
“I’m so proud of them, they’re so fun to watch,” Faison said. “They’re out there running around laughing and crying and feeling like they’re about to throw up. They had nothing left [in the tank], except to just come together.
“If you had asked me before the game, I would have preferred to win 2-1 [in regulation] without knowing the outcome. But knowing the outcome, I’m like heck yeah, let’s go to penalty kicks. And knowing the outcome, you look back into overtime and all the stuff that happened to create that situation, this is a beautiful story that these kids will never forget.”
Going into the season, the Warriors did not know exactly what to expect in their first year competing at the AHSAA level. They knew they had a good team, but the uncertainty surrounding the new, unfamiliar competition made setting initial expectations difficult, and there were only two seniors on the roster.
While several victories over higher classification schools early in the season gave LSA reason to believe they truly belonged, it was their 3-2 double overtime quarterfinal victory over Tuscaloosa Academy six days prior that breathed belief into the young squad.
“After the game, because it was so intense, I felt that it was the best thing that could have happened to us because we really needed some opposition and to see how we responded in situations where things are hard,” Faison said. “Winning 7-2 doesn’t really make you grittier. So I think as intense and close as that was, that was the best thing we could have gone through looking back because it made everyone have to dig and pull together and find [their inner strength].”
That inner strength was most definitely needed as LSA faced a hard-charging MA squad for the state title.
Designated by the AHSAA as the road team, the Warriors began the game with the ball and immediately smothered Madison Academy in the opening 10 minutes with overwhelming possession and several scoring chances.
While MA began gaining more possession of the ball and threatening the LSA back line with increasing frequency as the game progressed, it was still the Warriors who found the better opportunities to score the first goal.
Then, with 15:57 left before halftime, Zarah McGreer broke that scoreless deadlock with a crucial goal that came after her quick-thinking follow-up shot snuck past the MA goalkeeper at a very tight angle.
However, that lead only lasted for five minutes after MA’s Regan Boyd launched a high-arching shot from outside the box into the top left corner from the opposite side of the goal.
With the two teams again locked in a draw, it appeared that star freshman forward AJ Spillman would regain LSA’s lead after getting behind the Mustang’s back line for a one-on-one opportunity against the goalkeeper. Her shot then sailed just wide of the left post, and the game remained tied at one apiece.
The responsibility then fell to Olivia Murchison to keep the Warriors in the game with two crucial saves in the final five minutes, and the two teams retreated to their respective benches as the halftime whistle sounded.
The second half began similarly to the first, with LSA controlling possession in the Mustangs’ third of the field and creating numerous scoring chances in the opening 15 minutes of the second half.
That patience finally paid off with 20:31 left to play in regulation after Merrill Huddleston unlocked the game with a gorgeous through ball to Emmerson Mills. After splitting the MA back line, Mills then took a measured approach to a one-on-one opportunity and calmly slotted the ball just to the left of the Mustangs’ goalkeeper.
With the lead again in hand, the Warriors engaged in fierce defending, especially against Boyd, who was by and far MA’s main offensive threat in the game.
The Mustangs then again equalized, this time with less than five minutes left in regulation, after Boyd’s free kick cross was fumbled in the box and MA’s Emma Olsen latched onto the bouncing ball.
It was an unexpected goal that went against the run of play and galvanized LSA into balancing pouring everything into a last-second game-winning goal and desperately defending against a potential Mustangs counterattack.
Those efforts went unrewarded as no last-second goal came, and the Warriors found themselves in a sudden-death overtime period for the second time in three games.
As the game entered the first overtime period, the action slowed to only one combined shot attempt as fatigue began setting in and neither wanted to overcommit and commit a mistake that cost them the title.
Despite that initial slowdown, the second overtime period became more active as Murchison was forced into a critical save on an audacious long shot that kept the game tied at two with just 30 seconds gone by. However, neither team found a way to separate itself from the other in the remaining four minutes and 30 seconds, and the championship game came down to a penalty kick shootout.
That set the stage for a courageous performance in goal from Murchison and the players Faison trusted to take the penalty kicks.
After MA missed their first penalty kick by kicking it squarely off the crossbar, Merrill Huddleston was the first LSA player to step up to the spot. While having all the pressure on her shoulders, the sophomore calmly placed the ball just inside the right post and gave the Warriors an early advantage.
Murchison then forced a save straight down the middle before LSA missed its second shot of the shootout. As the third Mustangs player stepped up to the spot, Murchison almost recorded another save, but the ball just went past her outstretched fingertips to the left and gave MA their only goal in the shootout.
With the result still in the balance, Spillman, who had been harassed and kept in check by a swarm of Mustangs the entire game, made her opportunity count with an emphatic shot into the back of the net.
Murchison, who knew the Warriors had a one-goal advantage and the chance to end the game with another goal, made her second save of the shootout.
It then came down to eighth grader Charlee Huddleston to win LSA their first state championship as a member of the AHSAA. If she was nervous, the team’s youngest member did not show it and coolly placed the ball into the top right of the goal through the MA goalkeeper’s hands, sending the Warriors’ bench streaming onto the field in celebration of a storybook ending.