'We took it home': Austin-East boys soccer team returns home as state champions
Travis Dorman
The bus rounded the corner, and the crowd absolutely lost it.
Folks hooted and hollered as they swarmed the doors. Somebody started spraying silly string in the air. DJ Sterl the Pearl hit the airhorn sound effect a couple dozen times in a row. And together, the community celebrated the Austin-East Magnet High School boys soccer team as champions.
"This was my last game," senior Esloni Hakizimana said after he grabbed the DJ's microphone. "This was our only chance, and guess what we did? Guess what us seniors did? We took it home! We took it home, that's what we did."
RELATED:'It means everything': In season full of firsts, Austin-East adds soccer state championship
Austin-East won its first ever soccer state championship in Murfreesboro on Friday afternoon. Its victory over Gatlinburg-Pittman High School topped off an improbable run the likes of which the program had never seen. And it came in the most dramatic fashion possible: in penalty kicks after the Roadrunners came from behind to tie the game in overtime.
Junior Cheikhna Sadibou-Seck scored both the tying goal and the game-winner. His teammates flooded the field, crying tears of joy. They hoisted the trophy, and then, of course, they ate like kings: steak and spaghetti at Demos' Restaurant in Lebanon.
The team returned to Knoxville, tired but happy, to great fanfare. Some 200 people people gathered in the back parking lot of the school, hours after a storm rolled through, to welcome the boys home. The DJ blasted tunes from the likes of Mary J. Blige, cracked jokes and yelled things like, "I WANT TO SEE 5,000 PEOPLE DOWN HERE TONIGHT. AUSTIN-EAST STATE CHAMPIONS, WHOA!"
The Electric Slide twice broke out in the street before the team’s bus pulled up at 11:20 p.m., flanked by police cruisers with lights flashing. Even Mayor Kincannon joined in the dancing.
"We're rolling out the red carpet," said Tammi Campbell, Austin-East's new principal.
And so came an emotional end to an emotional season. Last year, the Roadrunners' season was ruined, as so many things were, by the coronavirus pandemic. This year, it was marred by gun violence.
Five Austin-East students lost their lives in separate shootings from January to April. One student was shot and killed as he left school. Another was killed by a police officer in a school bathroom, a shooting prosecutors deemed legally justified.
Coach Jonathan Netherland's players endured trauma and grief as the season went on.
"They keep reiterating, 'Hey coach, we're just going to take it game by game, and whatever happens happens,'" Netherland told Knox News in April. "I've taken that approach with them too. It just means a little bit more this year."
One month ago, Netherland wasn't even sure his boys would get to play their senior night game. The coach for his team's scheduled opponent messaged him saying they didn't feel safe playing on Austin-East's turf.
With the fate of the game up in the air, the community stepped up. Knox Pro Soccer and the University of Tennessee worked together so the team could play the game at the Lady Vols’ Regal Soccer Stadium. A crowd of 1,800 showed up to stomp their feet and cheer every time an Austin-East player drilled the ball into the back of the net.
The Roadrunners won 9-0. Then they kept winning. It became a season of firsts for the program: first district championship, first regional championship and first appearance at Spring Fling.
When money for lodging and meals was a question mark, the community stepped up again and helped the team raise $4,000 for the trip to Murfreesboro.
Austin-East had played Gatlinburg-Pittman three times already this season. The Roadrunners had won twice. On Friday, they won again, ending the season on an 8-0 run. While others worked to ensure the Roadrunners had a special season, in the end, it seems, they did that themselves.
"This victory, this championship belongs to the community of Austin-East Magnet High School," athletic director Alvin Armstead told the crowd Friday night. "We cannot thank you all enough for all the support, all the love, all the things you've done to help us get these kids to and from Murfreesboro. Thank God for all of you."