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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

VESTAVIA HILLS – The Oak Mountain Eagles managed to one-up their 5-0 victory over the Vestavia Hills Rebels from their initial meeting on Friday, March 14 with a dominant showing on the road.

Oak Mountain secured a commanding 7-0 win over Vestavia Hills on Thursday, April 3 at Vestavia Hills High School as the Eagles remained undefeated on the 2025 season with a 20-0 record.

With the victory, Oak Mountain also improved to 5-0 in area play, guaranteeing one of the top two seeds in Class 7A, Area 5 as the Eagles will advance to the 2025 Class 7A playoffs to defend their state title from 2024.

A loss by Hoover in one of its final three area games, including the final area game between Oak Mountain and the Bucs on Thursday, April 17 at 7 p.m. at Oak Mountain High School, will hand the area championship to the Eagles without any need for a tiebreak.

The victory also gave Oak Mountain a big milestone as it is now undefeated in the last 50 matches dating back to the beginning of the 2024 season. The 49-0-1 record extends the Eagles’ state record for most consecutive games without a loss.
As far as the match itself went, Oak Mountain stormed out of the gate and put the Rebels on the retreat early by scoring the opening goal of the match to take a 1-0 lead.

That lead snowballed into a 3-0 advantage by the halftime break as the Eagles continued to control both ends of the pitch to earn a multi-goal lead.

Oak Mountain didn’t let its foot off the gas in the final 40 minutes, not just matching its previous total of five goals against Vestavia Hills, but surpassing it. The Eagles scored a total of four goals in the second half to extend their lead to a dominant 7-0 margin.

Goalkeeper Alexander Chaidez-Cruz and the Oak Mountain defense continued their shutout form to secure the clean sheet and see out the seven-goal victory to remain undefeated on the year.

The seven goals came from five different goal scorers as Nate Taylor and Roy Soldevilla each finished with a brace thanks to their two goals on the night. Sam Collins and Gabe Capocci earned a goal and an assist apiece, and Nate Wright rounded out the scoring with a goal on the night.

In addition to the assists from Collins and Capocci, Gerardo Rodriguez, Sam Laney and new West Alabama commit Luke Jovanovich each secured an assist in the victory.

Collins led the offense with eight shots, including four on target. Capocci had five shots while Taylor earned four shots. Taylor and Soldevilla were each a perfect 2-for-2 on their shots on goal as Soldevilla ended the night with three total shots and two on net alongside Rodriguez.

Chaidez-Cruz stopped three Rebels shots on goal to secure the clean sheet in his 80 minutes of match time.

The Eagles will return to action on Tuesday, April 8 at 7 p.m. to face the Northridge Jaguars at Oak Mountain High School.

As for the Oak Mountain girls, they fell 3-2 to Vestavia Hills as goals from Ellee Maniscalco and Faith Harrell were not enough to get past the Rebels on the road on Friday, April 4.

The Eagles dropped to 13-4-2 overall and 1-3 in area play and will next face the defending Class 6A state champion Mountain Brook Spartans on Friday, April 11 at 6 p.m. at Oak Mountain High School.