Back on top: West Lauderdale blows past Stone in MHSAA 4A Championship

BRANDON — For the fifth time in the last eight years, West Lauderdale soccer is back on top.

Behind a stellar performance from Kristen Phillips and Bailee Fairley, the Lady Knights raced past Stone 5-0 to claim the MHSAA Girls Class 4A State Championship at Brandon’s Bulldog Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Golden Ball is the fifth in school history for West Lauderdale (23-2-1) and its first since 2020.

“I thought the girls played really well," West Lauderdale coach Brandon Rodgers said. "They did what I asked them to do before the game, and they executed it to perfection. I think we had a lot of possession and had the ball a lot on their end of the field and created chances. Struggled to get them in the first half, but they started falling in second half.”

The Lady Knights scored their first goal on a penalty kick by Phillips off a handball in the box in the 24th minute of the first half.

In the second half, Phillips scored for the second time just four minutes in to extend the West Lauderdale lead to 2-0.

Fairley scored her first goal of the match in the 54th minute, as she dribbled through the Stone defense and shot just inside the 18-yard box and found the net to extend the Lady Knight lead to 3-0.

Fairley scored her second goal of the game two minutes later off a pass from Phillips to extend West Lauderdale’s lead to 4-0.

“Kristen and Bailey have been doing that all year and they feed off each other and help each other out and teammates,” Rodgers said. “Had eight seniors and very talented group and they built a good program where the expectations are to win state championships and glad to be part of it.”

Fairley was named the games most valuable player.

“We started out a little rocky, but we pulled it off. We played really strong and when we scored on the penalty kick lifted everybody up,” Fairley said. “We’re normally a second half and after the first goal we kind of kicked in that we wanted to win. One thing we said at the beginning of the season was we’re winning state, we’re going to get there and win and that’s what we did.”

Alexa Shirley scored the final goal of the game in the 75th minute for West Lauderdale to extend the lead to 5-0.

Stone had a total of just four shots on goal. The Lady Tomcats, the defending Class 4A state champions, finish the season 14-5-1.

“The girls played really hard, and they didn’t stick to the other team’s level,” said Stone coach Carissa Harrison. “ We were solid in the first half and then we ran out of steam. We’re young, so we will learn from this and to make it here back to back years is a blessing.”