By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor
It’s not hyperbole to say that the Shelby County Coach of the Year award could’ve gone to any coach in the county.
Chelsea’s Lee Miller capitalized on one of the most talented teams in his decades-long career to reach the school’s first Final Four since 2011. Briarwood’s Mike Bautista helped his team go on an undefeated tear through the area to win the title and set up a run to the second round.
Calera’s Landon Gaskins oversaw another area championship while getting to the doorstep of the Eagles’ second Final Four in three seasons. Indian Springs’ Rik Tozzi used his tactical expertise to get the most out of a talented group and reach the state championship game.
Even more names could be listed as finalists, but in the end, two coaches stood out for helping their teams remain focused and achieve history: Cody Baxter and David DiPiazza, who are the 2025 Shelby County Coaches of the Year for boys soccer.
Baxter had a challenge on his hands with the Westminster School at Oak Mountain Knights as an appearance in the Class 1A-3A state championship match in 2024 meant that his team would move up to Class 4A for the next two years.
However, he had two crucial things going in his favor–a strong group of seniors and a motivated group of seniors.
Baxter and the players said before the season that the state championship loss to St. Luke’s Episcopal only motivated them to want to win the big one after back-to-back disappointments in Huntsville, first a Final Four loss in 2023 and then a state championship loss in 2024.
The players simply put their heads down and went to work as Baxter instilled a championship mentality that was only refined through the tough opening slate that he set for them.
Before the start of area play on Feb. 28, the Knights had already faced a Class 7A side in Hewitt-Trussville, three 6A county teams in Chelsea, Briarwood and Spain Park and beat two 5A teams in Montevallo and Leeds.
That gauntlet left Westminster OM with a 2-3-1 record entering area play, but a 3-0 result at American Christian left them left no doubt that not only had the tests made them into a formidable side but that it could easily challenge for area and state crowns in 2025.
The result set the stage for a dominant final two months of the regular season. The Knights finished the rest of the regular season 14-2, going a perfect 8-0 in area play in the process including a stretch without goalscorer Charlie Krulak.
Their only two losses were to eventual Class 7A runner-up Oak Mountain and a 4-3 road loss to one of the top teams in Class 5A in St. Michael Catholic.
During that run, Westminster rolled past its opponents as all but three of their final 16 matches were one-goal games. Two of those one-goal games were some of their biggest wins of the season though as they knocked off Calera, a Class 6A quarterfinalist, 3-2 on April 7 before going to Class 7A No. 9 Thompson and winning 2-1 behind an Aiden Gamble brace.
The latter result came during a much-hyped in-school match for the Warriors and put the Knights on the radar as one of the championship favorites. However, just like he had throughout the season, Baxter wanted his players to compartmentalize the result and just go one game at a time.
“We talk about there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and once you cross that line and get into arrogance, it’s a pretty big fall,” Baxter said after the Thompson win. “So, we want to be confident, absolutely, and take this as yeah, a statement win, but we also know others are going to see it as just that and the target for us got a little bit bigger, so I think our guys are up for the challenge, but we’re going to be sure to remain humble in this, but we’ll enjoy it, but they know tomorrow, the count is zero.”
The Knights needed that mentality as they ran into much tougher tests once the playoffs rolled around. Each of their three matches against St. James, Trinity Presbyterian and St. Luke’s Episcopal were decided by one goal apiece, but each time, they prevailed.
The sweetest victory though may have been in the semifinals against St. Luke’s as it not only gave them a revenge win over the team that beat them for the state title last year, but Gamble got to redeem himself from a close-range miss to score the lone goal in the Final Four win.
That was just one chapter in a lengthy story that finished in emphatic fashion with a 6-0 win over Oneonta as Westminster overcame years of heartbreak to finally win a state championship, which was a result of the culture that Baxter instilled long ago.
“I’m really proud of them,” Baxter said after the state championship win. “It’s been a long journey for us. We often say that God writes long stories, and for us, it’s been one of three years with this team in particular… These guys have done a great job to just build this program and build this culture over the past three years and they finally get to see the rewards of it.”
However, when you talk about dynasties years in the making, you can’t avoid talking about David DiPiazza’s role at Oak Mountain.
In his final season with Oak Mountain, David DiPiazza helped the Eagles make history with the longest unbeaten run in state soccer history thanks to a 60-match run that secured the team’s third state championship appearance in four years. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)
Under DiPiazza, the OMHS Class of 2025 never missed a trip to Huntsville, reaching the state championship in 2022, the Final Four in 2023 and winning it all in 2024. That continued again with another red map trophy as the runner-up in 2025 but not before an unforgettable run to the finals.
After going undefeated in 2024 with a 29-0-1 record, Oak Mountain entered the 2025 season with a massive target on its back. With that came the threat of complacency, but the beginning of the season saw the Eagles get back to their dominant ways.
Oak Mountain swept through the Southern Shootout, Lakeshore Shootout and Wiregrass Cup to win all three tournament titles. What’s more, the Eagles won each of their first 13 matches by multiple goals and had an average margin of victory of 4.3 goals in each of those games.
Oak Mountain was rarely tested during the regular season as it only had two one-goal regulation wins against Auburn High School and Homewood and went to overtime just once, a thrilling shootout win over then-No. 2 Hoover to claim the area title.
During that regular-season run, the Eagles broke the record for most consecutive matches without a loss, topping the 2015-17 Oak Mountain dynasty with a 45-match unbeaten run by beating Vestavia Hills 4-0 on March 14.
To DiPiazza’s credit, he never made beating the streak a priority nor stressed it to players. Despite the media, namely yours truly, updating the tally every match, the Eagles set out to win one game at a time and become the best team they could be ahead of the postseason.
“It’s just perseverance and a testament to the character of the players we have in the program,” DiPiazza said after the record-breaking Vestavia Hills match. “I don’t think there’s a person out here that felt any pressure to do anything, and that’s kind of what makes this team exceptional. It stresses me out, but it’s not something we ever really talked about until they announced it at the (Leeds) game last week. It’s a testament to the character of these guys, to be on top for that long and to try to maintain that standard of excellence.”
One of the difficult parts of maintaining that streak was looking for ways to improve even in a run of four-or-five-goal wins. To DiPiazza, that’s the most difficult part of going 60 matches without a loss and trailing in just four matches in 2025. Losing tends to be the best teacher, so stressing the little mistakes in wins was key to getting back to Huntsville.
“When you win, it’s hard,” DiPiazza said after a 6-0 first-round win over Thompson where the Eagles let their foot off the gas late and nearly lost their clean sheet. “Losing teaches lessons, and when you win, it’s sometimes hard to get to see that, and I think we’re going to go back and we’re going to watch film and we’re going to look at it and see that we could have played better.”
Much of their adversity came late in the year after they conceded the lead to Hoover in the area finale and Prattville in the quarterfinals while nearly allowing an equalizer in a poor second half of the semifinals against Grissom.
Those results may have sounded warning signs ahead of Oak Mountain’s 2-1 state title game loss to Montgomery Academy, its first defeat in two years, but it took nothing away from the historic dynasty that DiPiazza built with the Eagles.
Sixty matches without a loss may never be topped in Alabama soccer history, and three state championship appearances in four years is nothing short of impressive.
For DiPiazza, it all goes back to the culture and the character of his players.
“What we’ve done statistically is great, but I’m more proud of what these guys have done as human beings,” DiPiazza said after the state championship loss. “Yeah, they’ve had a great four years on the field, but they’ve grown as men, and they’re incredible student-athletes and they’re incredible people. I’m way more proud of that than any of our records and accomplishments, and that’s kind of what I’ve been trying to tell them this whole time.”
While DiPiazza shocked the soccer world by leaving Oak Mountain to coach Vestavia Hills, it’s that on-field success and off-field character building that solidifies his legacy as one of the best coaches in county history.
His Coach of the Year honors were solidified even before the Eagles lost out on a second-straight state title and historic national title and before he left OMHS solely because of what he and his team accomplished across the entirety of the season.
In a crowded year of coaching excellence, Baxter and DiPiazza both rose above thanks to their winning cultures that built year-over-year success while also shaping men of character.
