The Richmond Academy girls soccer team kept the receipts.
The Region 4-AAA champions achieved an undefeated region record with a 3-2 win over Morgan County on Thursday.
The rivalry with the Bulldogs has been one-sided in recent years. Over the past three seasons, Morgan is 6-0 against Richmond, with a 21-4 point differential. This was supposed to continue in 2024, until the Lady Musketeers decided to flip the script.
“We've never really been close, maybe 1-0 my freshman year. Every team comes here expecting to crush us,” the senior said. Carolina Rivers said. “I think it's great that I was finally able to seize that opportunity even though I was an underdog.”
For these seniors, regional titles meant even more. A standout on the volleyball team, Rivers and his teammates finished runner-up to the Bulldogs in both sports every year in high school.
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“It feels great,” she said. “I have been playing both volleyball and soccer since I was in the first grade. We have finished second in both sports in the same region every year. So in my last sports season It's really great and ironic that we won. It's great and shows that our hard work paid off.”
In fact, several former Musketeers players made sure to express their feelings to the team before the season.
“This is our fourth year in this area, and when we reached out to the girls who have played the past three years, they sent us a video called 'Win Morgan County.' There were 30 girls in the video, and I don't think they were able to do that, so the regional championship will come next for the girls who tried for four years,'' said Richmond coach Kevin.・Shyer said.
“We have beaten great teams and played good football. We have leaders in each grade, on defense and in midfield. This is a group that checks all the boxes.”
Richmond Academy defeated Morgan County in both contests this season, but coach Kevin Scheier's team isn't ready to rest on its laurels just yet.
Richmond Academy, which won the regional title, will host the first round of the Georgia High School Association Class 3A state playoffs on April 16 as the No. 1 seed.
“This is it. This is the last time I'll be working with this group,” Scheyer said. “I felt like I could win this year.”
What’s so special about this Richmond women’s soccer team?
It's easy to look at just the senior group as the main reason for the program's success, but this team has depth.
In addition to the senior leadership that has been on the ground and running it, there are exciting new elements.
We'll start with junior goalie Maya Victor. Even though he had never played football, he became one of the emotional leaders on the field. They also have standout freshman midfielder Carson Murphy. He might be the most skilled player on the team when it's all said and done.
This also comes with many of these athletes balancing multiple varsity sports and other activities.
“For me, Caitlin, and the girls who are juggling volleyball, soccer, and schoolwork, basically the entire team is in the (International Baccalaureate) program at Richmond. In addition to sports and curriculum, we also have schoolwork. I think they can name three clubs that they belong to because they also focus on that,” Rivers said. “A lot of these girls have been doing this since they were freshmen, so I think the biggest problem is that a lot of them don't have any other options. They've been juggling sports and academics since the sixth grade. I did.”
Success is built on years of community buy-in, and this team is no exception.
“Among these girls, Karolina is the oldest sibling, but most of the girls have older siblings who played sports in school or currently play sports. It's in their DNA. Something like that,” Scheier said. “Parents are also participating because their brothers and sisters have done it for them. So just like they know how to do the routine, they're doing it as well.”
For fourth-year student Lucy Roche, who moved to Augusta from Houston after her freshman year, that became clear relatively quickly.
“I never expected to come to a small town and find a team like this,” she said. “The second day of school was soccer tryouts, and the moment I stepped on the field, I felt like we were family.”
