Year in Review
For anyone who keeps tabs on sports at any level, but particularly at the high school stage, it’s very easy to transition from one season to the next without batting an eye.
Football, volleyball and cross-country seasons in the fall quickly transition to basketball, indoor track and wrestling in the winter, and before you can blink, spring sports roar into action like a lion.
With everything that goes on throughout the school year, there’s often not time for reflection. Well, take a moment to do that now. The high school athletic teams at Hoover and Spain Park put together a year filled with lasting memories and noteworthy performances.
The Bucs began an extremely successful school year by defeating McGill-Toolen for the Class 7A football championship. Hoover boasted one of the most dominant defenses in recent memory, and rode that all the way to Auburn and a blue map.
Spain Park put together an 8-2 regular season. After consecutive losses to Hoover and Mountain Brook, DaMarius Farmer’s 97-yard pick-six against Thompson might have given the Jags the momentum to win their final five regular season contests.
On the volleyball court, the Bucs advanced to the title match, but the brute strength of Mountain Brook proved too much, as the Spartans pulled off the three-peat. Spain Park coach Kellye Bowen did not have the talent many top-level programs possessed, but the Jags never went down without a fight, and overachieved overall.
In the winter, the Spain Park girls put on a basketball playoff run for the ages, with one thrilling victory after another on the way to the state championship game, where it met crosstown foe Hoover. Claire Holt’s heroics got the Jags there, and Sarah Ashlee Barker’s clutch 3-pointer at the end of regulation sent the final into overtime.
Hoover went on to win under first-year coach Krystle Johnson, a former state champion as a player at Hoover. Johnson came back home from coaching at Huntsville, tasked with getting the Lady Bucs back on the big stage. That’s exactly what she did.
On the wrestling mat, Hoover had four individual state champions in Patterson Huff, D’Angelo Dewitt, Randy Jenkins and Austin Carter, as the Bucs finished second at the Class 7A state meet.
Spain Park’s boys bowling team overcame an early deficit in the championship match to beat Vestavia Hills and claim its second consecutive state title. The Lady Jags advanced to the quarterfinals at state.
Bridging the winter and spring, the Hoover boys and girls pulled off impressive sweeps of the indoor and outdoor state track and field championships, racking up a total of four state titles.
Both schools added to their trophy cases once again in the spring, as the left arm of Brock Guffey and big hits up and down the lineup led Hoover to its second baseball state championship in school history, and the first in Adam Moseley’s tenure as coach.
Spain Park’s girls tennis team was impressive in its debut at the state tournament, finishing behind only juggernaut Mountain Brook and earning a red map in the process. The Jags’ softball team made it to state for the second straight year and finished third.
Finally, Spain Park’s girls golf team triumphed and won the 7A title with a great team effort from Jordan Susce, Caroline Waldrop, Mary Kate Horton and Marilyn Steed. Hoover’s Julie Baker and Mychael O’Berry led the charge for the Bucs, who finished runners-up.
So take a minute to remember what those student-athletes accomplished in the 2016-17 school year, because before you know it, football, volleyball and cross-country will begin again.