By Alec Etheredge & Anna Grace Moore
Photos by Dawn Harrison
Victory narrowly escaped the Hoover High School girls soccer team’s grasp in the Class 7A soccer state championship, which was held on Saturday, May 11 at John Hunt Park in Huntsville. Having fought a valiant effort, the Bucs lost 1-0 to the Auburn High School Tigers, making the Bucs’ first-runner-up finish the team’s highest finish since 1999.
“It was kind of a defensive struggle,” Nick Smith, Hoover High School’s head girls soccer coach, says. “Auburn’s back line played really well. The MVP of the tournament was Laila Simmons, who is one of their center-backs on their defensive line, and she earned it. She played extremely well, and they at every opportunity had to go down and try to score. We outshot them on the day, but we just couldn’t get one to go in.”
Although the Bucs outshot the Tigers 12-5, it was Auburn’s Peyton Bishop who scored the nail-biting game’s only score of the night at 25:49 on the clock. The Tigers’ goalkeeper Melissa Smith made five saves, and the Bucs’ Lane Morton notably made three saves, too.
Nick says while the championship game did not go the way the Bucs wanted it to, he was still incredibly proud of his players, who boasted a record of 21-5-2 during the 2023-24 season. The Bucs shut out rival teams such as Oak Mountain High School, Vestavia Hills High School and Huntsville High School.
On Thursday, May 9 during the semifinal game, the Bucs shut out the Huntsville Panthers, proving Hoover was once again a force with which to be reckoned on the road to the Class 7A state championship. This game, Nick says, was the epitome of what the Bucs were capable of and will go down in history as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the school’s program.
“Our team really bought into the fact that any individual success was all of our success,” Nick says of the Bucs’ impressive season. “They were always just so happy for each other. No matter who was the one scoring the goal, they didn’t care who got the credit. They were just excited that everybody was kind of pitching in to help Hoover soccer be successful.”
During this match, the Bucs scored two goals within the first six minutes of the game and an insurance goal in the second half to create all the necessary separation in a dominant 3-0 victory.
The fast start from the Bucs in the first six minutes of the game was largely thanks to Dee Dee Udeh, both with a play that made the opening goal possible and a goal of her own shortly after. With the Bucs controlling the ball early, Huntsville felt the pressure quickly, but it was a play ahead to Dee Dee that eventually paid off.
At first, the ball looked to be too far, but she sprinted, catching it just in time to stop it right in the corner before trickling out of bounds. Keeping the play alive, she eventually played it in, which led to a tripping penalty just in front of the goal to set up a penalty kick for Hoover.
Elise Marquardt stepped up and easily put the ball in goal, sliding it to the keeper’s left for a 1-0 lead 4:11 into the game. Then, just more than a minute later, Dee Dee got in on the action herself.
After another great pass played to her up the middle of the field, Dee Dee took it off a bounce and was able to beat her defender for a one-on-one opportunity that became a cake walk, as she buried a shot to make it 2-0 with 34:19 to play in the opening half. From there, Hoover had a few more chances to add to the lead but couldn’t capitalize, while Huntsville had even fewer opportunities with a stingy Bucs’ defense.
That effort led to a 2-0 halftime lead for the Bucs. Early in the second half, the Panthers came out with a more aggressive approach offensively, pushing the ball toward the goal within the first 10 minutes of the half, but Hoover’s defense always buckled down when facing pressure.
And, the pressure didn’t last long.
After that 10-minute spurt, the Bucs took control of the game once again and maintained it the rest of the way with very little threat to their defense. With 21:30 to play, Nneka Udeh was able to gather the ball in the left corner of the box and fired a powerful shot into the back of the net that became the final straw in the shutout.
Hoover outshot Huntsville 17-2 in the win with 10 of those 17 shots on goal.
“Those girls pushed our entire soccer program forward in a big way,” Nick says. “They’ve left a lot of memories with me, and I know they’ve done that with themselves. They are just incredible ambassadors of their community and of Hoover High School. It’s a team that the community and the school should be very proud of.”
Looking forward, Nick says the Bucs will tackle the 2024-25 season with the same tenacity, balancing sportsmanship with true grit to achieve yet another triumphant season.
Look alive, Hoover. The Bucs are back.
