Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Chelsea’s Lexie Duca (3) is shown in the state championship game last May. The junior attacking midfielder said the Lady Hornets know what to expect in the playoffs this season.
Vanessa Vega hopes her high school career ends on the same trajectory her entire career at Chelsea has taken to this point.
Each year, her experiences have gotten better and better. And as a senior, the only way to achieve that this year would be for the Lady Hornets to repeat as Class 6A state champions.
Last spring, Chelsea downed Southside-Gadsden, 2-0, to capture the school’s second state soccer title.
“We’ve had a lot of great memories,” said Vega, a center back for the Lady Hornets. “They’ve gotten better throughout the years, so we’re hoping that this one will end like the best memory yet.”
Center back Maddison Martin, an LSU signee, said last year’s team being able to overcome a slow start to the season and win its final 12 games of the year was her favorite memory. It’s also why she is unfazed by the team’s somewhat sluggish start to this year.
Last spring, the Lady Hornets began the year with just five wins in their first 13 games. But around the time spring break rolled around, the team hit its stride and went on a tear, winning the final 12 games to take home the blue map.
This year, Chelsea dropped three of its first seven contests. But after the experience of last season, there was no panic whatsoever in the locker room.
“Last year, we were all kind of freaked out, because we started off pretty bad,” Martin said. “After you start out bad and end up winning state, if you start off the bad the next season, it gets a little bit easier to process that.”
Chelsea managed to get on a roll in the month of March, winning six straight games before heading down to Foley in early April forthe Southern Coast Cup.
“We started out similarly last year,” said head coach Jonathan Hammett. “It was sort of a rough start. Same thing this year, we got off to a rough start. We’re finally getting healthy and we started playing really well as we were heading into spring break.”
Hammett said that consistency has been preached as the season begins to near its conclusion.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Hammett said. “We’re not there yet. We didn’t start hitting our stride last year until spring break and through that part of the season. Hopefully, that’s what’s still in front of us.
“When they are playing focused, they play beautiful soccer,” he added.
As for the postseason, the Lady Hornets rolled through five opponents on the way to the title last spring. They allowed just two goals total — both to John Carroll in an overtime victory — the entire playoff run.
“Since we were able to make it all the way through the playoffs last year, we know what’s expected and we know the competition that we can be up against,” said Lexie Duca, a junior midfielder.
The feeling of winning a state championship is “unreal,” according to Vega, and she fondly remembers the crying, screaming and everything else from the Lady Hornets raucous celebration last spring.
There is certainly a long way to go and improvements still to be made, but the Lady Hornets know what the end goal is.
How badly do they want it?
“More than you can imagine,” Vega said.
