Stone Soccer Family Runs Deep: Husband and Wife Lead Tomcats to 4A South State

If you lump St. Stanislaus and Our Lady Academy into one, three Coast schools are sending both their boys and girls soccer teams to south state, joining St. Patrick and Stone in the semi-finals.

But it’s the story out of Wiggins that’s truly unique as both husband and wife are just two wins away from getting their teams to the altar for a different kind of ring.

Talking soccer is a way of life in the Harrison household, Patrick being the head coach of the boys team and Carissa is the head coach of the girls team at Stone High School. “I mean there are times that we go out on date night and we’re like you know what, we’re not talking about soccer today. Let’s talk about something else. Yeah, yeah. And we make that rule sometimes. And it still goes back to soccer. Yeah, it eventually ends up back to soccer.”

Both guys and girls practice on the seam at the same time, and the coaching power couple could even carpool to and from work so long as the rivalry doesn’t boil over. “We can’t really scrimmage each other anymore because they wound up hurting each other because they want to win so bad.”

“Before the game I’m holding the babies, and then we do the trade off and it’s just a cool dynamic.”

As you might expect, the martial by-product is two teams that feel more like one team and one family and that means family dinner the night before every game. “We ride the busses together to every game, and we have pasta nights at our coaches’ houses – the girls and the boys meet together.”

“What kind of pasta is served at pasta night?”

“Chicken Alfredo.”

“Oh, chicken Alfredo. Chicken Alfredo. Pat makes the best chicken Alfredo.”

That shared love of soccer and carb-loading is paying off on the pitch for the both the Tomcats and the Lady Tomcats.

Starting with the boys, appearing in their first South State championship game since their 2016 state title run.

The Tomcats come in with an overall record of just 7-11-1, but they’re getting hot at the right time ahead of their rematch against the same Bay High team that ended their season each of the last two years. “We haven’t gotten a whole lot of wins, to be honest, this year, but we’re getting the right ones, and that’s what matters.”

“I think everybody here has tremendous pride for this team and how far we’ve come, and our coaches have all the faith for us and we have everything in them as well. We wear the badge everywhere we go.”

As for the ladies, they’re making history with each passing win, now in the South State title game for the very first time in program history on the back of their third straight district title with an overall mark of 14-6-1.

They get Northeast Jones in the third round. “It’s been really amazing to make history, and with this team it’s just a special group.”

“Yeah, we’ve never done this before and we’ve been playing together since we were like four, so it’s really special and we’re really excited to see how far we can go.”

“Whenever we won on Saturday, everyone was just so collectively excited. Making history is easy when we have a group like we do.”

Two trips to South State for the price of one and maybe even state championship game double trouble for a Stone soccer family that not only comes first, but wants to come in first. It’s justification. We came here to bring Stone to the top, and I feel like we’ve done everything off the field to justify that in the sense that we’re not just here to win games. We’re not just here to win championships. We want to see our kids grow and develop and become something after graduating. Not just in soccer, but getting the win at the end is just the cherry on top.”

The boys team riding into South State with just one senior while the Lady Tomcats feature six seniors dancing for the last time.