By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
The season worked out just about perfect for the Western Alamance girls’ soccer team, all the way to the end.
“So much has to fall in place for something like that to happen,” coach Camden Brooks said.
Western won its first state championship in girls’ soccer, defeating South Point 1-0 in Friday night’s Class 3-A state final at Mecklenburg County Sportsplex in Matthews.
Callie Athas scored in the 51st minute and the Warriors made it hold up.
Western was in its first title game in girls’ soccer, but the outcome completed a 2024-25 soccer sweep for the school. The boys’ team won the state title in November. Brooks coaches both of those teams.
The Warriors (24-0-1) allowed only one shot on goal, with Camden Markey making a save on that attempt for Western’s 15th shutout of the season.
“Once we realized we were really good, we definitely wanted to win the championship,” said defensive midfielder Mia Napier, the team’s only senior starter.
South Point (21-4-2) lost in the championship game for the third year in a row.
Freshman Kayley Lee of Western was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
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By halftime, the Warriors were sensing they had controlled play despite neither team scoring.
“We gained a lot of confidence as the game went on,” Brooks said.
Athas said the Warriors needed to convert when they had chances.
“We realized we were maintaining possession more,” she said.
Lee had control of the ball on what became the sequence that led to the game’s goal. She delivered the ball down the field.
“I feel like over the season, we kind of read each other,” Lee said of Athas. “I knew she was making that run. … I knew she was fast and she could get it.”
From there, it was up to Athas with the ball inside the box.
“I had the space to shoot,” she said. “(The defender) wasn’t right on top of me, so when I saw the opportunity I took it.”
It marked Athas’ 32nd goal of the season. From there, the Warriors locked in defensively to secure the championship.
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A year ago, Western was stopped one game shy of reaching the championship game. But there was new personnel in some positions.
“We knew that working hard in the winter, the offseason, that we could do some things,” said Brooks, who was in his fourth season directing the girls’ team. “But it’s still always a little bit surprising when you make it this far.”
Yet with an undefeated record and the No. 1 seed in the East Region, the Warriors were on the right path.
With eight regular contributors graduated after the 2024 season, so Napier wasn’t certain about how good the Warriors would be. Then they began the season by defeating a couple of Class 4-A teams followed by a few lopsided results.
“It opened up my eyes to what we might be able to do,” Napier said.
The championship game became a culmination of the season and a sign that the build-up across several months had paid off. Brooks said some of the Western players provided their best game in the title matchup.
“They way they handled themselves was professional in my eyes,” Brooks said. “They weren’t rattled by the occasion.”
There wasn’t a senior among the team’s top five goal scorers.
Western held a 7-3 advantage in corner kicks.
The Warriors scored one goal in each of their final three games. Athas, a sophomore, had all of those, though the other two came on penalty kicks. She also had one of the tallies during a penalty-kick shootout in the East Region semifinals against Jacksonville.
The start of Friday’s game was delayed about one hour because of lightning and weather concerns.
