JL Mann Patriots cap undefeated season

Roger Lee • May 25, 2025

J.L. Mann’s Nico Ortiz and Ashley Ridge’s Joshua DeSouza battle for possession May 23


By Roger Lee

Contributing Writer


Columbia - J.L. Mann had a fast start in the 5A, Division 1 Boys Soccer Championship May 23 and held off a feisty Ashley Ridge team in the second half to complete an undefeated season.


The Patriots (26-0) capped their season with a 5-3 win over the Swamp Foxes (22-4) at Memorial Stadium in Columbia to secure the division State Championship.


“I’m so happy for this group,” said J.L. Mann coach Brenden Jones. “The joy of that buzzer going off, I’m just so happy for them. They worked hard all season to do what they did, which is something historic for this program that had never went a full season without losing. What a great way to cap off a season.”


J.L. Mann entered the game as the state’s top-ranked 5A team while Ashley Ridge was ranked third for the class. The Patriots are also ranked above the Swamp Foxes in the national polls. Just how high above depends on which poll, but basically both teams can be proud of their rankings.


“J.L. Mann is highly ranked nationally for a reason,” said Ashley Ridge coach Nate Harris. “The fact that my kids were down 3-0 to that team and came back the way they did, I can’t be any more proud of them. I asked them to give me everything they have and they did. A couple of bounces this way or that way and it could have been a tie game. That’s just the way soccer is.”


The Patriots received two goals from senior Timothy Reardon and a goal each from junior Smith Darby and seniors Luke Pietrobono and Nico Ortiz. Darby is team’s leading scorer this season, but his goal in the championship game didn’t come until well into the second half.


“The beautiful thing about this team is it has never been about one guy,” Jones said. “In years past, we may have kind of relied on one guy to do it tall. We had a number of goals scorers today and that just shows that it’s the pieces around a good player that can really make a team.”


With just more than 28 minutes remaining in the opening half, the Patriots made a fast run at the Ashley Ridge goal. Pietrobono sent a shot into the net to open the scoring.


Approximately six minutes later, a J.L. Mann player made a wide pass to the right that drew Ashley Ridge goal keeper Keith McCune out of goal. It was a race to the ball that J.L. Mann’s Reardon just won.


He sent what looked like would be a cross toward the goal, but the ball took a meandering curve toward the left corner of the net and no Ashley Ridge defender could get to it before it rolled in for a 2-0 Patriots’ lead.


Despite both having to deal with a bright sun shining in their face for part of the game, which McCune got the worst of in the first half, McCune and J.L. Mann’s Rodrigo Fuentes both had a strong game in goal.


The Patriots made it 3-0 five minutes into the second half when Ortiz got a second-chance shot following a corner kick and scored.


However, the Swamp Foxes continued fighting and got on the scoreboard with 28:50 remaining. Following a throw in, Beckham Harris passed to Joshua DeSouza in front of the goal and the junior found the net to cut the lead back to 2.


It didn’t take long for the Patriots to answer as Oriz passed to Reardon for his second goal.


It took even less time for Ashley Ridge to answer Reardon’s goal. Junior Aiden Butts had an assist on a goal from DeSouza. DeSouza’s second goal of the evening cut the lead to 4-2.


Darby got into a one-on-one with McCune with just more than 17 minutes remaining and used his chest to send the ball into the net for a 5-2 J.L. Mann lead.


The final goal of the night came in a similar manner as Ashley Ridge sophomore Austin Fuller got a one-on-one with Fuentes and scored with just under four minutes remaining.


“We had the skill so it came down to how hard we would work and how bad we wanted it,” Jones said. “This is a resilient team and that is what you need to win a state championship. Ashley Ridge has excellent guys up top who obviously can score so to be able to hold them to three goals is impressive from our back line.”


For the Swamp Foxes, it came down to missed opportunities.


“There are 11 kids on the field so it’s not one person or one thing that went wrong, but there were definitely opportunities we had,” Harris said. “The thing is, they came in and represented their school well. We weren’t over matched.”


J.L. Mann’s Davidson Chou wins a race to the ball with Ashley Ridge’s Elijah Dunker

J.L. Mann captured the 5A, Division 1 Boys Soccer Championship May 23

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Lake View’s Kaylynn Turner Named “NETC” Female Student Athlete of the Month Lake View — Kaylynn Turner is a senior who plays softball and volleyball at Lake View High School . Turner said she started playing volleyball in the seventh grade, but softball is her favorite sport, which she started playing in the 9 th grade. On the volleyball court, she played all around as a utility player and played left field in softball. Being a two-sport student athlete brought opportunities. Turner says this about team play, “My favorite part is being on a team with friends, forming new friendships, and the support from family.” In the classroom, she carries a 4.07 GPA, and she says that after high school she plans to major in Exercise Science with an end goal of a career in Occupational Therapy, or as an athletic trainer. While she has not ruled out continuing softball at the next level, if she gets that opportunity, her favorites teams are Coastal Carolina , USC , and Florence Darlington Tech .  For all her athletic and academic accomplishments, Turner has been chosen the “NETC” Female Student Athlete of the Month.” This honor is bestowed through a partnership between the Northeastern Technical College and “The High School Sports Report” with the publication communicating with athletic directors at high schools in the counties of Dillon, Marlboro, and Chesterfield, where NETC serves the needs of high school students seeking to earn dual credits, in various subjects, that can be transferred to colleges after a student’s high school graduation. The NETC is currently offering over 44 online dual credit courses for the 2024-25 school year to students in the three counties they serve. Currently, Turner is enrolled in two dual credit online courses offered by NETC. She already completed many basic requirements for her freshman year of college. She has focused on taking key classes for her major, like Medical Terminology, History, and Spanish. She added that she “already took care of many first-year classes and hopefully this puts me a semester ahead when I start college.”. When asked about what NETC did to help her, Turner said it “helped her develop important time management skills, especially while playing sports, attending high school, and taking college level classes online through the NETC. “Dual-enrollment classes really taught me the difference between in-person classes, versus online classes which prepared me for what’s I should experience in in college,” said Turner. When asked about the online class experience, Turner said the experience was a “confidence boost” that enhanced her time management skills. “The online classes were doable when I thought they weren’t,” she said. “Before taking online classes, I was more of a procrastinator, and I learned to be more on top of my work.” Turner recalled her favorite time playing softball “In the first game of the lower state playoffs this past season, I played a long ball off the fence and I was able to throw it back to the infield and we got the lead runner out.”

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