Why St. Joseph’s Catholic girls soccer is confident on return trip to state title
COLUMBIA — St. Joseph’s Catholic girls soccer expects to see Memorial Stadium again.
St. Joseph’s fell short to Oceanside Collegiate Academy, 4-0, in the Class 3A SCHSL state championship game at Memorial Stadium on May 21.
But even after the crushing loss, Knights coach Katie Martin sounded certain about that particular sentiment.
“We’ll be back,” she said confidently. “We have a super young team. Over half of our program is sophomores and freshman. The experience they get here is something they’ll carry with them. I’m 100% sure we can get back here.”
Martin doesn’t view the loss as a failure. Instead, she’s proud her team made it to the last game of the season for the first time since 2022.
“We’re not upset at all,” she said. “These girls worked unbelievably hard all season. We made it here for a reason.”
The first-year coach spoke highly of her senior class, despite only being able to spend one season with them.
“Oh, man. I could sing their praises all day long,” Martin said. “We asked the whole team to buy in this season, and the seniors made sure that happened with everybody. They’re great people, they pushed the team when we needed to, and we wouldn’t have been here without them.”
One of those seniors is Lola Kelly, who was also a standout guard on the basketball team. Kelly will further her soccer career at Wofford College next year.
“I’ve had so much fun at this school,” Kelly said. “I’ve been to Upper State championships eight times between basketball and soccer, and it was incredible every time. I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything, it’s been amazing.”
Junior defender Peyton Armstrong shared her coach’s sentiments about making a quick return to the state championship game. And next time around, she’s hopeful her team will have a better outing.
“I’m really happy we made it this far,” she said. “We’re all confident we can get back here next year, and put up a great fight. That’s our goal.”
Kamryn Jackson covers high school and college sports for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Greenville News, Anderson Independent Mail, and the USA TODAY Network. Please email her at KEJackson@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @KamxJack.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: St. Joseph’s girls soccer expects to return to SCHSL state championship
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