Jayla Blue of Bearden is the 2024 5Star Preps Player of the Year.
BY DAVE LINK
Bearden junior forward Jayla Blue has been going full bore with soccer since helping the Lady Bulldogs reach the Class AAA state championship match Oct. 26 in Chattanooga.
She’s now in club season with FC Alliance.
She works on her soccer skills with Zinyor Babiker (Coach Zee), the director of player development at Soccer Player Academy in Knoxville.
She does off-the-field workouts at Triple F Elite Sports Training in Knoxville for her speed, strength, and agility training.
And she works out on her own by herself and with teammates at the Bearden soccer field.
Blue’s sister is 2024 Bearden graduate Nyla Blue, who just completed her freshman season as a defender at Tennessee.
Bearden coach Ryan Radcliffe said the Blue sisters got an intense work ethic from their parents, former Tennessee Lady Vols basketball star Kristen Blue (previously Kristen “Ace” Clement) and her husband, Avery Blue, who played football for Soddy-Daisy High School and Carson-Newman.
“I think the pedigree speaks for itself, growing up in a family like theirs,” Radcliffe said. “I always talk about how driven Nyla was, and obviously that’s been passed down to Jayla. The family itself is as driven as it can be. You’ve got to be when you have parents who were some stud athletes as well.”
All the work has been worth it for the Blue sisters, whose soccer careers are thriving.
Last month, Jayla was chosen to play in the prestigious ECNL National Selection Game on Dec. 14 in St. Louis. She was selected Player of the Game after scoring four goals, which the ECNL (Elite Clubs National League) website referred to as “a superstar four-goal performance” by Blue.
Blue, the 2024 5Star Preps Girls Soccer Player of the Year, recalls the ECNL all-star game as an “awesome” experience. She scored two goals with her left foot and two goals with her right foot.
“I was so blessed for the opportunity,” Blue said Saturday, Jan. 4. “The girls were so nice, and we just clicked immediately. We just played soccer, and it was really fun playing with them.”
She could say the same for her Bearden career thus far.
As a freshman in 2022, the Blue sisters were teammates on Bearden’s 24-0 state championship team with Nyla playing defense and Jayla playing on the frontline with current South Carolina sophomore Brinley Murphy and Western Kentucky sophomore Becca Roth.
“I was surrounded by a great group of girls my freshman year,” Jayla said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group. On the front line it was me, Brinley Murphy, Breana Mendoza and Becca Roth, and I was able to play with my sister as well, which was a great opportunity, and I’m so blessed for that. They were all extremely welcoming and a great group of girls.”
In 2023, the Blue sisters helped Bearden (22-0-1) win its third consecutive Class AAA state championship with Nyla playing defense and Jayla playing on the frontline with Alivia Stott and Mendoza.
Stott and Nyla Blue signed with Tennessee and were the 2023 5Star Preps Co-Players of the Year, and Mendoza signed with Dayton and was on the 2023 All-5Star Preps first team.
This past fall, Bearden fell short of a fourth straight state title, losing to Germantown Houston 4-2 in a penalty-kick shootout in the championship match.
It was a bitter defeat and a motivator for the returning Lady Bulldogs.
“This season I was really grateful for everything that we did and what we accomplished, even though we didn’t get as far as we wanted to,” Jayla Blue said. “But that only gives us more motivation for next season. I believe we can do it if we just stick to our plan and work hard, and we have a group of girls who are willing to work hard. I’m excited to see what the 2025 season holds.”
Blue set Bearden’s single-season goals record in 2024, scoring 45 goals and surpassing Murphy and Amy Porter (each had 41-goal seasons).
And Blue set the record as the target of opposing defenses.
“She was man-marked, she was double-teamed last year, and I think the cool part was she was still able to break through that pressure,” Radcliffe said. “I describe her as unmarkable. If you try to get close to her, she has the speed to beat you from behind. If you try to back off of her, she has the skills to break you down in open space as well.”
Barring the unforeseen, Blue, with 102 career goals, will break Bearden’s career goals record of 110 set by Murphy in 2022.
“Jayla kind of saw and learned from those girls before her,” Radcliffe said. “That was kind of my message to her (before the 2024 season): ‘You’re now our go-to player,’ not that she wasn’t in the past, but you’ve had some bigger names, and last season we had new pieces coming in, new players taking new positions, and we leaned a lot on Jayla to be that focal point, not just being a goal scorer but a producer as well.”
Radcliffe expects Blue to have a senior season worthy of All-American status – Nyla Blue and Murphy both were All-Americans – while helping the Lady Bulldogs contend for another state title.
“I kind of put it simply,” Radcliffe said, “usually to be an All-American, you’ve got to be on a state championship team. I think that’s good motivation. I’m lucky and I think we’re fortunate that she still has another year and she’s producing at the level she’s producing.”
Blue will keep pushing herself to reach higher levels.
Her decision to choose Tennessee for her next soccer destination was a difficult one. She narrowed her choices to the Lady Vols, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas, taking a whirlwind of visits.
At one point, Blue was considering another school. Her faith kept her in Knoxville.
“I prayed about it, and that’s just where the Lord wanted me,” Blue said. “He wanted me to stay closer to home. In those four weeks, when I was going on visits to other schools, I was not in the best mental place, and if I went to another town, I wouldn’t have that same support that I would have if I were at Tennessee, closer to home.”