Andrew Jackson ends ‘amazing season’ in tough loss in 2A state championship game
Andrew Jackson junior forward Tyler Trimnal laid on his back, his jersey pulled over his face.
His teammates were in sad disbelief, too. Some cried, seeking solace from assistant coaches. Others stood with blank stares as Christ Church players and students — decked out in white and powder blue — jumped and smiled and cheered and threw water on the opposite sideline in victory.
After 80 minutes of hanging tough — in a game that was perhaps two plays away from being even — the Volunteers lost the 2A state championship to Christ Church, 2-0, on Thursday night at Irmo High School.
“The players are disappointed,” Andrew Jackson coach Will Brice told reporters postgame. “Naturally, everybody at the end of a loss is. There’s gonna be a winner and a loser. But I’m proud of where we are. We beat some great teams to get here, had an amazing season. And we were two plays — a mistake down on our end that I don’t think should’ve been a penalty, and then we were inches away from putting one in that could’ve been the equalizer (without that other mistake) — from a tie game and going to overtime.
“So we were right there.”
Thursday marked the first time since 1994 — and only the third time ever — an Andrew Jackson boys’ soccer team (18-4, 8-2) competed in a state title game. A win would’ve delivered the program’s first state championship.
Christ Church (15-1-1, 6-0), conversely, entered Thursday with 12 boys soccer state championships to its name, per South Carolina High School League records. The program had won 11 consecutive state titles between 2001 and 2011. And this year’s team appeared cut from that same proverbial championship cloth: In 17 games, the team only gave up one goal — and its only loss ended in penalty kicks against 5A Riverside, a team that is playing for a state championship itself later this weekend.
“We knew this was going to be a battle, and we have the utmost respect for Andrew Jackson,” Christ Church head coach Anthony Esquivel told reporters postgame. “We knew that they weren’t coming here to play. We knew they were coming here to win. And when a team like that is on the other side, it brings out the best in you. And we knew this was the toughest test of the season.”
What happened?
Brice admitted his Andrew Jackson team took a while to adjust to the moment.
And that shaky start proved consequential: In the game’s fifth minute, with the ball bouncing dangerously in a scrum in the AJ box, Christ Church striker Aiden Bell sent it into the back of the net for an early Christ Church 1-0 lead.
But the Volunteers would soon find their footing. The game was largely back-and-forth for the next 60 minutes, each team appearing to maintain possession equally.
In the 65th minute, though, Christ Church had a chance to put the game away for good. And it did: After a tangle-up in the box between Christ Church forward Bell and Andrew Jackson goalkeeper Austin Kennington — who largely kept his team in the game with save after save, clear after clear — Kennington was called for a foul and sent off the field. Christ Church was rewarded with a penalty kick, and midfielder Ryan Chea found the back of the net for a 2-0 lead.
The Volunteers had a chance to cut the score to one in the game’s final three minutes, after a Trimnal attack and beautiful cross on the left side found a forward with a one-on-one with the goalie. But the shot sailed wide.
Then came the final whistle. The loudness of victory on one side and the silence of defeat on the other.
Two ends to two special seasons.
“It’s a long road,” Brice said. “You think about it, we’re a little small town in a rural community. And we’re fortunate to have some good talent and a lot of fan support, but we just battled. ... We’ll live and learn from it. We have a young team. We’ll come back and hopefully get another chance. But this is no easy feat to make it this far.”
How Andrew Jackson got here
Andrew Jackson was a formidable force from the season’s start.
After an opening-game loss in February to Catawba Ridge — a team that would go on to fall just short in the 4A Upper State title game — the Volunteers got hot: They won their next 11 games and only allowed three goals in that span.
It was during this run that the team saw an emergence of young talent that the rest of the state would soon take notice of. Freshman midfielder Carson Brice, sophomore midfielder Tyson Funderburk, junior goalkeeper Kennington and junior defender Owen Phillips were each selected to the 2A All-State team. (And that list doesn’t even include key offensive piece in Trimnal, who verbally committed to play soccer at national powerhouse Clemson in December.)
Andrew Jackson’s winning streak was stunted in early April by region foe Legion Collegiate, which beat the Volunteers twice to ultimately claim the Region 4-2A crown.
But Andrew Jackson’s leaders were undeterred: After handling Woodland and Phillip Simmons in the first two rounds of the playoffs, Andrew Jackson bested Legion, 2-0, for the first and most important time of the season — and that semifinal win gave the Volunteers a berth in Thursday’s state title game.
Like it did when the volleyball team traveled to a state final in the fall, the town of Kershaw rallied around this state-title-bound team before the state championship game: Students at Heath Springs Elementary, a Lancaster County school that’s home to future Andrew Jackson Volunteers, wore orange and blue as a show of support for their hometown team. Parents and fans cheered their boys on as they boarded their bus and rode it through Kershaw’s main street Thursday afternoon, and they cheered louder while they watched their boys play 60-plus miles away from home Thursday night.
And it was time and yelling and screaming and cheering well spent — even with the loss.
“There are no basketball fans and soccer fans — they’re Andrew Jackson fans,” Brice said. “And they travel, as you can see. They had sendoffs for us. And they get behind us. It’s like that every home game. And they traveled to Legion in Rock Hill on Monday. It’s just amazing to see the outpouring of support and the joy that it’s brought our players.”
This story was originally published May 13, 2021 at 11:07 PM.
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