The South-Doyle Cherokees faced the Fulton Falcons in a TSSAA Class AA state tournament semifinal at Richard Siegel Soccer Complex on Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. South-Doyle advanced, 3-1. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY DAVE LINK
MURFREESBORO – Sluggish at the start, the South-Doyle soccer team made a second-half push Thursday afternoon and earned its second consecutive berth in the Class AA state championship match.
The defending state champion Cherokees overcame a 1-0 halftime deficit and beat Fulton 3-1 in a semifinal match at Richard Siegel Soccer Complex.
South-Doyle (18-1-3) will play Gallatin’s Station Camp (19-2-2) on Friday at 1:30 p.m. CT at Siegel Soccer Stadium for the state title.
“It’s incredible,” said S-D senior defender Landon Walker, who started last season. “It’s an awesome opportunity. I’m so blessed to have the opportunity. It’s once again against Station Camp. We’re excited for that game. It was a tough opponent last year we had to get through, so we’re excited and ready for that game.”
South-Doyle defeated Station Camp 1-0 in last year’s state semifinals before beating Greeneville 1-0 in the championship.
Station Camp rolled to a 9-0 victory over Franklin County in Thursday’s semifinals.
“They’re super talented,” South-Doyle coach Sam Mitchell said of Station Camp. “Jeremy (Cooke) is a heck of a coach. We know it’s going to be a really tough game, a really tough out. We’re going to go home and find whatever film we can and start studying and look to come out ready to go tomorrow.”
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The Cherokees will have South Knoxville rooting for them.
“It’s really exciting,” Mitchell said. “This community, the way they rally around us, South Knoxville is such a big family. If you look at our coaching staff, we’ve got two uncles coaching two nephews. We’ve got a father coaching two sons.
“We’ve got players on our team whose brothers have gone before them, whose uncles, whose dads, no matter what it is, so you have a whole community of different generations rallying around a team. It’s just special. We want to bring another one home for them.”
They had to get by a state newcomer in order to do that.
Fulton (13-4-3), making its first-ever state appearance, took a 1-0 lead in the 10th minute on a goal by senior Yefri Banegas Sosa. Sophomore Shadrack Kayumba got the assist.
“Yefri was on our team four years ago when we didn’t win a single game,” Fulton coach Austin Clow said. “He’s my first four-year player. He scored our one goal today and had two assists yesterday. Him and Denis (Renia Padilla) have carried us all year. They’re our captains and they helped us build something that they can be proud of.”
South-Doyle’s coaches didn’t like the first half – especially after beating Fulton by a 5-0 score early in the season.
“Real slow start today,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know if it was tired legs, heat, we could make excuses for days. It’s just not good enough. The effort was not there, and props to Fulton. They came out and made us pay and were ready to play and dominated us for a half of soccer. The speech was simple: Effort has to get better, and if not, we’re going home. Luckily, they responded as they often do.”
The Cherokees scored 8 minutes into the second half.
Karl Henkenjohan, an exchange student from Germany, tied the match at 1-1, scoring from close range off a cross by Jude Straussfogel.
Walker said the coaches got the team fired up for the second half.
“We had a pretty slow start,” Walker said, “but that halftime talk from the coaches really got our focus back on the game and what we needed to do. We were able to come out in the second half and put one in early and that got us going.”
Finn Straussfogel, Jude’s twin brother, scored on a direct kick in the 63rd minute for a 2-1 lead.
South-Doyle made it 3-1 in the 68th minute on an own-goal by Fulton.
The Cherokees finished with 10 shots to Fulton’s six shots.
“We’ve been great up top all season,” Walker said. “It was a slow start. We all knew that. We know what we’re capable of up top, so I trusted them from the get-go.”