Lady Knights defeat New Albany for state championship

Published 7:30 am Sunday, February 22, 2026

RIDGELAND — For West Lauderdale the job has been finished.

Aubri Cooper scored two goals as the Lady Knights got past New Albany 3-0 to claim the MHSAA Girls Class 4A state championship Saturday afternoon.

It’s West Lauderdale’s (19-5-1) sixth state title in school history and first since 2023.

“It was a tough game for sure, New Albany made it tough for us, and we tried to make as many shots as we could and couple were able to go in on the penalties,” said West Lauderdale coach Brandon Rodgers. “Proud of the girls. they’ve worked really hard and improved over the course of the year and to finish this one off after last year is great.”

Cooper scored the game’s first on a penalty kick in the 14th minute to give West Lauderdale a 1-0 lead after a foul occurred in the box.

Scored stay the same until the 57th minute when Harleigh Culpepper scored off a throw-in attempt to extend the Lady Knights lead to 2-0.

Cooper scored the game’s final goal on penalty kick with 17 seconds left in the second half to give West Lauderdale the 3-0 lead.

Cooper was named the game’s most valuable player.

“It was the team that earned those penalty kicks, and I just had to finish the job,” Cooper said. “It was my teammates working their tails off in the box to earn those penalty kicks. Defensively they got after us for the first 10 minutes, so we did a great job of communicating and staying together. We had to work together and had to put pressure on them. We talked about it every day that we aren’t finished after the way last year ended, so we had sign made and we saw it every day for six months that we haven’t finished in the past two years and it’s great feeling to get it done.”

Defensively the Lady Knights held New Albany to just one shot on goal, while West Lauderdale had six.

“We did a great job of keeping the ball forward for most of the game and keep applying pressure and hold possession and eliminating things they wanted to do,” Rodgers said. “We’ve missed out on the last two years and had a motto of unfinished this year and that was the goal was to finish it off this year and we did and I am super proud of the girls.”

New Albany finishes the season 17-5-2.