The Champs Reload: MSU soccer’s historic season builds a foundation
When summer turns to autumn, Starkville becomes a football town, but a different kind of football also took over Starkville in 2024.
Mississippi State women’s soccer transformed into the premier team in the Southeastern Conference. The team went a perfect 10-0 to win the regular-season conference crown and claim the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in November.
“The league table doesn’t lie,” head coach James Armstrong said after clinching the title, citing a well-used phrase from English football. The results spoke for themselves in terms of the growing crowds at the MSU soccer field.
Less than a month after winning the SEC, 4,022 Starkvillains spent their Friday night watching the Bulldogs win a thrilling 1-0 game against Washington to get to the Sweet Sixteen. The Bulldogs were on the ride of their lives, but it came to an end against Notre Dame in the next round.
As with most sports at all levels, unprecedented success led to departures. The team’s backbone – goalkeeper Maddy Anderson, defender Rylie Combs, and midfielders Macey Hodge and Ilana Izquierdo – graduated, along with key starters Alexis Gutierrez, Ruthny Mathurin, Hannah Johnson, and Aitana Martinez-Montoya.
Head coach James Armstrong also departed in December, succeeding his former mentor at Auburn, Karen Hoppa, who retired after 26 seasons in charge of the Tigers.
One of the most important factors in MSU’s historic 2024 season was continuity in coaching and roster building. With so many exits, is a slide expected?
Not exactly.
The Bulldogs enter 2025 with Nick Zimmerman, Armstrong’s former assistant, as the seventh head coach in MSU history. Zimmerman joined Armstrong in Starkville in 2019 as an assistant and rose to associate head coach in 2022. He was the obvious choice to take over.
Once a player himself, Zimmerman has seen the game at multiple levels. He represented the U.S. at the U15 level, was an All-conference player at James Madison University and played professionally before moving into coaching.
Zimmerman has a reputation for his recruiting. He helped land internationals Mathurin and Izquierdo, who have played for their respective countries, Haiti and Colombia, on the biggest stage. Six players he recruited and coached have gone professional in the United States or Europe.
Zimmerman also retained two assistants, Kat Stratton and Alyssa D’Aloise, while adding Jonathan Garbar and Henry Zapata to the staff.
Top scorer Ally Perry returns for her senior year after a 10-goal campaign, along with veteran winger Chelsea Wagner and defenders Price Loposer and Naila Shoefberger. Veterans Alivia Buxton and Maggie Wadsworth also return after their respective campaigns were interrupted by extended injury absences.
The team also returns midfielder Kennedy Husbands and forwards Zoe Main and Kara Harris, who all impressed as freshmen in 2024.
“We’ve got a lot of really good pieces, and what’s more exciting for me is this is a group that’s hungry and they’re ready,” Zimmerman said on the Dear Ol State podcast. “There were a lot of strong personalities in our group and now it opens the door for some younger players to really open up and grow. It’ll be a different group, but it’s an exciting different group.”
Main scored the final goal of a memorable season, running in behind and finishing with the composure of a seasoned veteran in front of that record crowd of 4,022. It was the fifth time setting a new attendance record that season.
The new standard on the pitch set a new standard in the stands as well, and that may be as important as the returning players.
“The fans bring us up when we’re down and they bring us up when we’re up,” Main said after the game. “They’re incredible and their support means everything. They’re always ringing their bells and it was just an unreal feeling.”
STORY BY COLIN DAMMS
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MSU ATHLETICS
