Spain Park finishes Juanita Boddie pool play unbeaten with four wins – Shelby County Reporter

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

HOOVER – The Spain Park Jaguars may have dropped a tough test in a 3-0 loss to McGill-Toolen Catholic on the opening night of the season, but they bounced back with a flying start in the 2025 Juanita Boddie Tournament, going 4-0 in pool play at the Finley Center on Aug. 22 and 23.

Spain Park beat the Athens Golden Eagles, Fairhope Pirates, Opelika Bulldogs and Mississippi’s Lamar Raiders and only dropped one set in the process to advance to the Gold Bracket.

However, the Jags quickly saw their tournament end against the Hewitt-Trussville Huskies as they lost a 2-0 sweep in the first round of bracket play.

Spain Park kicked off the tournament with a matchup against Athens that it handled fairly easily.

The Jags took control of the first set of the best-of-three match and saw out the victory down the stretch of the set.

Spain Park won the first set 25-19 to go up 1-0 in the match.

From there, the Jags faced a slightly tighter second set, but they still prevailed in 25-21 fashion to secured the 2-0 win over the Golden Eagles and move to 1-0 in pool play.

Spain Park took the win into a battle with a Class 7A opponent in Fairhope to finish out the first day of the tournament.

Just like the first match, the Jags were in the driver’s seat in the first set and went on to win the set 25-19, establishing themselves as the favorites in the match.

The Pirates fought back in the second set, keeping Spain Park closer down the stretch with only two points separating them on match point.

However, the Jags finished out the sweep with a 25-22 second-set win, securing the 2-0 match win to head into the second day of pool play with a 2-0 record.

Spain Park saved its most dominant performance for the first match of the day on Saturday when it faced Opelika in another matchup against a Class 7A opponent.

The Jags flew out of the gate and won the first set by a score of 25-16 to grab the lead in the match.

After that, Spain Park secured a double-digit win in the second set, dominating the Bulldogs en route to a 25-15 victory that swept the match.

The Jags took a streak of six-straight set victories into their final match of pool play against Lamar out of Mississippi.

Just a short time after finishing the match with Opelika, Spain Park looked like that previous matchup hadn’t ended with the way it controlled the first set of play.

The Jags went up by a commanding margin and secured a 25-16 victory to extend their streak to seven-straight set victories.

It also put them just one set win away from a perfect pool play record, but the Raiders had other plans.

Lamar surged back in the second set and took the fight to Spain Park during a tight battle. In the end, the Raiders got the edge in the set and won the second frame 25-21 to tie up the match at 1-1.

That tight nature extended to the third set as the teams traded blow after blow in the race for the victory.

The Jags finished the third set tied with Lamar at 14-14, forcing the set into extra points. However, Spain Park avoided the scare and won the next two points to take the match win, 2-1.

With that, the Jags booked their first-round matchup in the Gold Bracket against Hewitt-Trussville.

The two teams engaged in a very close battle throughout both of the sets in their matchup, but Spain Park’s hot streak came to an end.

In a razor-tight first set, the Huskies avoided extra points and secured the set victory by a score of 25-23 to put the Jags on the ropes.

From there, Hewitt-Trussville finished off the match win in the second set by winning the set 25-21. The Huskies would go on to be eliminated in the second round by the Auburn High School Tigers in three sets.

With the 4-1 performance in the Boddie, Spain Park improved to 4-2 overall on the season. The Jags will play their second best-of-five match of the season on Monday, Aug. 25 when they travel south to Clanton to face the Chilton County Tigers at 5:30 p.m. at Chilton County High School.