GRAY DEYOSports Writer

The Tullahoma boys’ soccer team is officially in action and is off to a hot start in their 2026 season. They have played two games and have won each game convincingly defeating LEAD Academy 4-1 and Middle Tennessee Christian High School 9-0.

LEAD Academy

How a team will look to start a new season is always hard to predict, and with Tullahoma being without a bunch of their starters from last season, they fell into the category of unpredictability. With that, however, they made a good first impression. Against LEAD Academy, they looked composed and were effective in their presented scoring chances.

In Tullahoma’s four goals in their season opener, each one was scored by a different upperclassman. Jack Hill and Jayden Sarabia were the two seniors to score in the Wildcat win over LEAD. Hill notably hit Tullahoma’s longest goal of the night. Sarabia, on his goal, was able to get past LEAD’s keeper off the dribble and then find the back of the net. He also had an assist on the night, passing a beautiful ball to junior Aiden Walker, who then scored. The other goal for THS was scored by Walker’s fellow class of 2027 teammate, Kaiden Grau.

Along with Tullahoma’s defenders helping limit the offensive success of the opposing team, senior keeper for THS Cole Sterling made a strong debut. He had a total of four saves in the match.

Filling in for a member of the all-district team, Daniel Eldridge, from last year, is no easy feat, but in his brief time on the pitch this season, Sterling has looked up for the challenge.

MTCHS

The Wildcats in this matchup put MTCHS’ chances of victory to slim to none rather fast. In the first half, Tullahoma scored a handful of unanswered goals. They were constantly in the opposing Cougars’ half of the field and generated numerous scoring threats outside of their converted goals.

The same story continued to unfold in the second half, as THS found the back of the net a few more times, all scores being unanswered again, as Sterling submitted his first shutout of the 2026 season. The nine goals that helped THS improve its record to 2-0 came from the following Wildcats: Omar Garcia (2), Grau (2), Alan Esquivel-Garcia (2), Marcos Borisenko (1), Diego Villegas (1), and Walker (1).

Tullahoma will have two more games this week. They will play DeKalb County High School on March 10 and KIPP Global on March 13.