Briarwood soccer star recognized for well-rounded career

For her efforts on the field, in the classroom and in the community, Briarwood Christian School soccer star Claudia Day recently earned the 2013-14 Gatorade Player of the Year award.

Claudia, who plays club soccer in the Birmingham United Soccer Association (BUSA), scored 40 goals in her senior season en route to being named the top high school soccer player in the state by the Gatorade National Association.

As a center midfielder, Claudia led the Lions to the Class 5A state quarterfinals in 2014 following back-to-back semifinal appearances. Her BUSA Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) team made it to the national championship tournament, advancing as far as round 16.

“Claudia is one of the key cogs of the wheel, so to speak,” said Andrew Brower, her BUSA coach. “She starts everything on offense and defense. She’s a vital part of the attack because she creates opportunities for other people.”

Playing soccer is a year-round commitment for Claudia. In addition to the spring soccer season at Briarwood, her off-season ECNL club team travels all over the country to play the best soccer clubs in America.

“Mostly training with my club team helped me prepare,” Claudia said. “We got to go so many different places. We went out to Phoenix and New York. [I enjoyed] getting the experience of traveling to play the competition. It really broadens your horizons of how many great players are out there. There are a lot of good players in Alabama, but there are so many more all across the United States.”

Claudia is the daughter of Scott and Terry and younger sister of Sidney, who is a senior at Samford University.

“It’s a big commitment; it affects the whole family,” Terry Day said of supporting her daughter’s soccer career. “There’s a lot of traveling on the weekends, a lot of paying for training. It’s awesome, and she’s worked so hard. It’s really nice to see her be recognized for her overall accomplishments.”

Soccer and family aside, Claudia finds room to maintain academics at Briarwood and help out in the community. The Gatorade Player of the Year award takes a player’s involvement off the field into consideration as well as on-field performance.

“She studies hard and does a lot for other people behind the scenes that nobody sees,” Terry said. “She coached a youth soccer team. She’d come home from school and have to go to practice, and then she’d coach practice and still have a lot of homework to do. I like how the Gatorade award encompasses all of that.”

With practices and travels, Claudia would have to miss out on social events such as fall football games.

 “It’s paid off,” she said. If you put off your satisfaction of one night of fun, you can have a state championship down the road if you’re willing to put it off.”

Now that her high school career is behind her, Claudia will head to Wake Forest University, which won the ACC tournament championship as recently as 2010. About 20 schools recruited her, but she chose Wake Forest based on the competition and notoriety of playing women’s soccer in the ACC.

“I decided that Wake Forest was going to be the best fit for me and the most challenging,” Day said. “Most of the teams that go on to the Final Four are from the ACC. Everything’s going to be done faster, so I’m going to have to pick up that pace when I get there.”

Day plans to study either health science or accounting in college and hopes to either use her math skills – she calls math her “best subject” – or go into a career in physical therapy.