By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

CHELSEA – On Tuesday night, April 12, the Chelsea Lady Hornets got an easy, 10-0 win over area opponent Pelham, which moved the Lady Hornets to 11-5-0 on the season. The win was significant in part because it all but wrapped up the 6A Area 10 regular season title for Chelsea, but was also significant for another reason. The win gave head coach Jonathan Hammett, who has been the head girls coach at Chelsea since the 2009 season, his 100^th victory at Chelsea High School.

The win was not Hammett’s 100^th career win, as he was the head boys’ coach at Pinson Valley High School for four years from 1997-2000, where he accumulated 41 wins. So while his 100^th career victory as a head coach came and went with no fanfare back on April 1 of 2013, he now has 100 victories in the Chelsea blue.

“First off I’ve been blessed over the years, not just at Chelsea but at Pinson Valley as well, to have had talented players that have been in the program, which makes a huge difference,” Hammett said on April 13. “Chelsea is in a location where soccer is huge. All of these schools within a two-mile radius of each other have all won state championships at some point. For us we’ve hit a little bit of a string of consistency. Quality players are here, each group of freshmen have quality players.”

Chelsea won a 5A state title in 2012 when the Lady Hornets went 22-2-4 on the season, losing only to Homewood and Vestavia that season. That is the most games any team coached by Hammett has won, and the Lady Hornets have averaged between 13-15 wins per year since he took over. This season Chelsea is ranked the No. 2 6A team in the state, and beat Briarwood and Thompson this season for the first time in program history.

Hammett, who was an assistant with both the boys and girls soccer teams at Chelsea when he first arrived in 2008, has found as close to the perfect situation as he thinks he can find.

“There’s no utopian high school anywhere on the planet, but for me Chelsea is pretty close,” Hammett added. “We have our ups and downs like every other school does, but the good days here far outnumber the bad. It’s a good work environment.”