Kierson McDonaldBy Rubin E. Grant
Kierson McDonald was already a month beyond the end of her high school soccer career at Oak Mountain when she received the highest honor of her career.
McDonald was named the 2022-23 Gatorade Alabama Girls Soccer Player of the Year in late June.
“It was so amazing when I found out,” McDonald said. “I knew I was up against some very good athletes. It’s a very good way for me to end my high school career.”
The award, in its 38th year, honors the nation’s best high school athletes and recognizes high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field.
McDonald is a finalist for the Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year award. She joins an elite alumni association of state award-winners in soccer, including Alyssa Thompson (2020-21, Harvard-Westlake School, California), Mallory Swanson (2014-15, Mountain Vista High School, Colorado), Heather O’Reilly (2002-03 and 2001-02, East Brunswick High School, New Jersey) and Abby Wambach (1997-98, Our Lady of Mercy School of Young Women, New York).
The 5-foot-10 McDonald played as a defender, midfielder and forward during her senior season this past spring, leading the Eagles (22-4) to the Class 7A state semifinals. She scored 31 goals and had 15 assists to earn first-team All-State honors.
“Kierson is dominant in all facets and has a killer instinct when it comes to winning,” Thompson head coach Dan DeMasters said. “She is a stellar left-footed player.”
McDonald is the fourth player from Oak Mountain to earn the Gatorade state award, joining Bailee Hartnett (2011-12), Toni Payne (2012-13) and Julia Pack (2015-16).
Oak Mountain won more than 100 games during McDonald’s career and captured the 2021 Class 7A state championship.
“Overall, I think I had a good career,” McDonald said. “When I was younger and I walked into high school, I would look up at the banners and I was like, ‘I want to have a banner up there one day. We only won one state championship, but I’m glad we got to win one.”
McDonald graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA and was a member of the National Honor Society. She volunteered locally on behalf of the Auburn tornado relief effort and served at the YMCA. She also participated in multiple community service projects with Church of the Highlands and through her club team, Alabama FC.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross-country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track and field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.
McDonald joins recent Gatorade Alabama Girls Soccer Players of the Year Isabel Smith (2021-22, Mountain Brook), Haley Duca (2020-21, Chelsea), Morgan White (2019-20, Westminster School at Oak Mountain) and Tara Katz (2018-19, Montgomery Academy), on the state’s list of former Gatorade award winners.
McDonald will play in college at the University of Alabama.
“I love all the coaches and think they’re all so great,” McDonald said. “They have lot of passion and high energy. It’s a growing program, so it’s a good place for me to play.”
McDonald enrolled earlier this summer. She’s hoping to play as a freshman.
“We’ll see,” she said. “I have a little bit of a knee injury right now, but I’m getting treatment for it.”
McDonald plans to major in criminal justice with plans to become a defense attorney or criminal investigator one day.
“I watched “Criminal Minds” on TV and a lot of criminal documentaries and got really interested in it,” she said.
English (US)