Well, as some of you know, I graduated this morning from the same school I’ve been going to for the past thirteen years since Kindergarten. Also, some of you (chat people most likely) know that my school’s soccer teams, guys and girls, have been competing to win the A/AA Georgia High School Association Soccer State Championship.
After a tough 7-1 loss to Decatur High School last night, the boys team became state runner up. They had an excellent season and went far beyond the hopes and dreams of pretty much everyone. But that’s not the team I want to talk about.
Eighteen years ago, my father started the girls soccer program for the Walker School. The team was horrible; our fans would cheer when we got the ball over midfield, but the girls had fun.
Eight or nine years into the program, our small little A school played AAAA or AAAAA school Wheeler at Wheeler. We won. It was the team’s first big win.
Five years ago, the team won its first area championship, and it made its way into the first round of the state tournament. It lost 7-0 to Providence Christian. Providence went on to win it all that year.
The next year, I joined on to the team as stat keeper. I kept track of goals, assists, wins, losses, etc. I joined originally mostly because I would have to stay late due to my dad coaching the soccer team, so I might as well be involved. That year, we won area championship again and lost to Providence Christian 9-1 in the first round.
The following year, my sophomore year, our assistant coach was replaced with one Brad Brown, a Walker graduate. We did well. The season included our first win against our nemesis Holy Innocents. We even won area championship again, this time advancing to the second round of the state tournament only to lose to Savannah Country Day 1-0 on a controversial play.
My junior year, my dad retired as head coach of the Walker Varsity Girls Soccer program after 16 seasons of hard work. Brad Brown took over as head coach. That season included our first win against Paideia, the defending state champions. Unfortunately, we were knocked out of the area tournament by Holy Innocents.
This year we did much better. We beat Pace Academy for the first and second times ever 1-0 and 2-1 respectively, with the second win clinching area championship. We went to the second round of state and beat Savannah Country Day 5-3 in overtime. We went to third round of state for the first time ever and beat Providence 2-0. And today (yesterday), May 24, we went to the state championship match for the first time ever and beat Athens Academy 4-3 in overtime.
The hopes and dreams of the past eighteen seasons culminated in that final moment. We fulfilled the desires of those that first started the program. We won state and can now proclaim to be number one. We ended our season 20-2-2, with only one of those losses being to an in state school, and that school being the damnedable Holy Innocents. But oh well. We’re the champions, and they’re not.
Let’s just say I’m more than a little happy.
I love the way church schools name their teams 
