St. James High School senior Katie Brightwell, the AHSAA’s all-time career soccer scoring leader, and the Trojans’ stifling defense boosted the Montgomery private school to a 3-0 win over Donoho and to its first state championship in the Class 1A/3A final.

Tournament MVP Brightwell scored a goal and assisted on another as the No. 1 Trojans improved to 17-1-1 on the year. St. James completed its state playoff run by allowing zero goals and gave up just 7 in 19 matches.

Katie Irving, who has held down the keeper spot for six years, recorded the clean sheet for the winners. She had 6 saves in the championship match on Donoho’s 4 shots on goal.

“We always say that defense is a team job,” said Trojans coach Charlie Brightwell, Katie’s father. “It starts with the top ones providing pressure and the rest of the team doing their jobs. Today, the wind in the second half gave them some opportunities, but (Irving) came up big each and every time. The back line did all they could do to limit them, but she was back there to back them up as she has all year.”

Brightwell, who scored 5 goals in the 7-0 win over St. Luke’s in the semifinals, finished her prep career with 259 goals – which ranks her nationally in the Top 10 overall. She finished the season with 71 – putting her single-season total seventh on the AHSAA’s Record Book list – one behind Catherine Reddick’s 72 goals scored in 1998. Reddick, the state’s most acclaimed girls’ soccer player in state history, also appears on that list with 78 in 1999. The College Player of the Year at North Carolina, she was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

In the first half, Brightwell zipped a pass to seventh-grader Molly Phillips, who punched in the goal to give the Trojans a 1-0 lead at 4:18. Less than 3 minutes later, Brightwell took a corner kick pass from fellow senior Mary Grace Hixon and scored St. James’ second goal. The Trojans added their final goal 8 minutes later with Hixon feeding teammate Kaylin Corley, a sophomore, for the match’s final goal.

The rest of the match turned into a defensive battle with Brightwell taking only 2 more shots.

“We have a real good group of girls,” the coach said. “We thought we could come out and get some opportunities early. Something we’ve preached all year is to finish early opportunities and the last two games we did that. We also talked about keeping clean sheets and if you don’t allow goals, it’s very hard to get beat.”

Brightwell complimented the state’s top goal-scorer for her job in the state tourney and for her work this season. “I couldn’t be more proud of Katie as her coach and her father. To score 6 goals in the semifinals and final was tremendous for us,” he said. “She’s been our rock all year when it comes to consistency and we’ve got a heavy group of seniors with seven who have been in the program starting in the seventh grade. They’ve played every minute, pretty much.”

The coach also praised Corley and Phillips for their work in getting goals. “Kaylin started for us last year (when the Trojans lost 3-0 to Westminster-Oak Mountain in the championship), but she hasn’t played a lot of soccer. She’s a tremendous athlete, which is an advantage against most teams. She’s really good on corners with her ability to jump and track balls high. She has the ability to rise above things and she was able to get up and redirect it into the net today.

“Molly had some opportunities for some putbacks,” Brightwell said. “She was able to follow the ball in and poke it home. She’s only a seventh-grader and she was in the right place at the right time.”

Second-ranked Donoho (19-2-1) got 6 saves from keeper Laralee Church. Erin Turley managed 2 shots on goal for coach Tim Melton’s Falcons from Anniston.