Kelly Pierce passed away on the night of August 1. No services have been mentioned yet.
I met Kelly Pierce sometime in the summer of 2013. I knew she had won two state championships playing soccer for Salpointe before playing for Pima and then the Sonoran Thunder of the WPSL. She stepped away from the game to raise her children but she kept in shape by playing indoor soccer.
At 32, Kelly was the best player on what was the inaugural Tucson Soccer Academy FC WPSL team in 2013. A few of the younger players, just beginning adulthood with all the physical abilities that go with that, were overtly jealous of Kelly. Had Kelly played now, she would have went to a Division I program for sure.
The All-Southern Arizona selection as a defender for the Lancers, Kelly was also an All-ACCAC selection for the Aztecs. Tyler, Brady and Camden came along and she earned All-American honors as a mother, what she would tell me was her most important “defensive role of her career.”
Kelly as a player. (Andy Morales/AllSportsTucson)
Kelly was named to the All-WPSL team as a defender at the age of 32. That summer, I convinced her to go into high school coaching because her position as a player-coach with head coach Amy Garelick Speder was evident.
“Kelly was the heart and soul of our Tucson youth soccer scene,” Speder told me. “She was a huge player and coach who carried on the Salpointe legacy. She left her mark on so many players and families. It’s a huge loss for our youth soccer community.”
Amy began our phone conversation this morning telling me she was hoping it was somehow untrue but the greatness we all witnessed on the pitch, and later, from the bench, was almost equally unbelievable. Kelly’s life and passing have meaning and the tears tell us it’s true. Oh, how I wish to be not true,
Kelly led Mountain View from 2013 to 2017 when she left to take over the Salpointe program after Becky Freeman brought stability and a championship to the program before retiring. Kelly went on to lead the program to six state championships as a coach including this past season.
KELLY PIERCE FILE 1998: State Champion (Salpointe) 1999: State Champion (Salpointe) 2000: All-ACCAC (Pima) 2002: Sonoran Thunder (WPSL) 2014: All-WPSL (TSA-FC Tucson) 2014: All-West Team (TSA-FC Tucson) 2014: Pacific South All-Star (TSA-FC Tucson) 2018: Salpointe State Championship (Coach) 2019: Salpointe State Championship (Coach) 2019: Desert Division Coach of the Year (FC Tucson) 2021: Salpointe State Championship (Coach) 2021: Desert Conference Championship (FC Tucson) 2021: Desert Conference Coach of the Year (FC Tucson) 2022: Salpointe State Championship (Coach) 2023: Director of Coaching of BVB International Academy 2023: Salpointe State Championship (Coach) 2024: CDO Soccer Club Director of Coaching 2025: Salpointe State Championship (Coach)
“She was a great competitor,” Salpointe athletic director Phil Gruensfelder told me. “She wanted the best for her athletes and she will be greatly missed. I was amazed at how much of a student of the game she was as a coach. I remember her playing for every ball and competing as a player and she brought that with her as a coach. She watched endless game film and was always looking for that edge, that advantage.”
Kelly would often text me before a match and after to see how I felt about her team. My response to her was always the same, she knew a million times more than me about soccer and I trusted her to always pull through because I’ve seen her coach and I knew her as a person. I knew she would win. I often told her to stop worrying. Rest.
Kelly didn’t like being filmed or interviewed and I mostly went with her wish but she offered this gem when she coached her 100th high school victory in 2022”
“It’s humbling. It’s exciting, but it’s a good start to the season, obviously. I don’t want to get emotional but it’s been a long journey. I’m happy to still be here and still be a part of it and to be successful. If it wasn’t for obviously the support of my family and always having great coaches from my Mountain View days to the beginning here and all the way through, and players that believed in what I was selling and families gave me just a ton of support. It’s a process and I’m really happy.”
(Andy Morales/AllSportsTucson)
Her family, led by her grandmother Lucy and mother Donna, came to every match. They took up a great portion of the stands. Her father, Keith, passed away at the young age of 58 in 2016 and I could see a change in Kelly. We became closer as if she was searching for something and I gladly answered every text and every phone call because I am still in that state since the loss of my own father.
Not only would she text me about strategy or how well she was doing on the pitch, she asked me to tell the other media members that her last name was “Pierce,” not “Kearns.” I think they slowly caught on. She asked me to help her in her role with FC Tucson Women and I gladly sponsored her players for a few years. She asked me a lot of private things that will forever remain private.
As much as I already miss Kelly, I know there are others much closer to her that will be reminded daily, if not hourly, of the pain of her loss. The weakness of our humanity makes it impossible for me to relieve that pain. The strength of our humanity gives me the ability to try.
Kelly Pierce coaching FC Tucson Women. (Andy Morales/AllSportsTucson)Kelly at Mountain View. (Andy Morales/AllSportsTucson)
{KXLG – Watertown, SD} The Elks Hoop Shoot is a nationwide free throw contest sponsored annually by the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. It’s one of the largest and longest-running youth sports programs in the country, giving kids ages 8 to 13 the chance to compete in a fun, skill-based event that emphasizes hard work, sportsmanship, and perseverance.
More than 1 million youth across the U.S. participate each year, starting at the local lodge level. Winners advance through local, state, regional, and national competitions, with the national finals held each spring at Chicago’s Wintrust Arena. Six national champions are crowned, and their names are engraved in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The program is designed to develop hard work and confidence. The Elks highlight that success in the Hoop Shoot often comes down to practice and consistency which are qualities they hope kids carry beyond the basketball court.
Watertown Elks Lodge #838 welcomed 61 young athletes for this year’s local event, with first-place finishers earning a spot at the state competition and a chance to continue their run toward the national stage.
Winners of the Watertown Elks Hoop Shoot were: Odin Ebsen 8/9 boys from Summit, Kellen Haugen 10/11 boy from Watertown, Nate Roe, 12/13 boy from Florence, Brynlee Amdahl 12/13 girl Summit, Ashlyn Schmidt 10/11 girl Florence, Mya Gaikowski 8/9 girl Waubay.
The state competition will be held on February 7th in Pierre at St. Joseph’s School Gym.
Cal Petersen held onto a simple childhood dream: He wanted to play for the Waterloo Black Hawks.
He grew up in eastern Iowa, and he gravitated toward hockey – a sport often trumped by more popular sports in the state, like baseball, basketball, football and wrestling – because of his family’s history.
And while most young players dreamed of making it to the National Hockey League, Petersen set his sights on the local USHL – the top junior hockey league in the United States – team.
MURRAY—Murray State Athletics boasted another successful Giving Tuesday earlier this week with $289,800 raised to support the department’s strategic priorities and initiatives while the department continuously invests in a world-class experience of the Racers’ more than 400 student-athletes.
The philanthropic day was the second-biggest Giving Tuesday total in Racer Athletics history behind last December’s total of $409,787.
“Racer Nation continues to invest in our shared vision for excellence by stepping up and supporting our student-athletes on Giving Tuesday,” Director of Athletics Nico Yantko said. “We are extremely appreciative of each of our loyal supporters for believing in our plan to boost our sport programs in a big way.”
The Racer Club plays a crucial role in helping support student-athlete scholarships, general operating budget, and facility enhancements. Investors play a critical role in funding the student-athlete experience and the competitive success of Murray State Athletics programs and student-athletes.
For more information on how to join the Racer Club, call (270) 809-3517.
PHILADELPHIA — The ball found him in the left arc, with the game hanging in the balance at the Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Tie score. 75 seconds left.
Throughout the contest, the Lakers’ offense had sputtered, misfired, stalled.
Then, LeBron James caught, rose, and released. The arc of the shot–– pure. The swish––silent. The crowd, moments earlier a raging sea of noise, was suddenly, stunningly, subdued.
It was the exclamation point on a 29-point, tour-de-force reminder, a 112-108 Lakers victory carved from resilience and authored by an old master who decided, when it mattered most, to take the pen back.
James can do what he wants. He sees the collection of youth on the court; nonetheless, it flourishes under his gaze. But when they need big brother to step in and tend to the business, they can’t; that’s why he is there.
On Sunday, business was messy. Business was necessary.
Luka Dončić, returning from a transatlantic journey for the birth of his daughter, labored to a 31-point, 15-rebound, 11-assist triple-double—his 49th 30-point triple-double, moving him past Russell Westbrook and Nikola Jokić for second all-time.
But his shots often rimmed out, his rhythm––absent.
Austin Reaves fought through an off-night where the lid sat snug on the basket.
Enter the connector. The conductor. The closer.
“I really thought his play throughout the game gave us such a lift,” head coach JJ Redick said. “LeBron was like our connector tonight.”
James wasn’t just a scorer; he was a solver. He set bone-rattling screens. He leveraged his gravity. He played a cerebral, grinding game, picking his spots with the precision of a surgeon until the moment demanded a sledgehammer.
That moment arrived with the score knotted at 105 after a Joel Embiid jumper. The Lakers’ previous four possessions: a Reaves miss, a Dončić miss, a Dončić turnover, another Reaves miss. The offense was adrift. The play call was simple, timeless: get the ball to LeBron.
He delivered the three. On the next trip, a 20-foot dagger. Ballgame.
“That was vintage ‘Bron,” Dončić said. “He just decided the game.”
Dončić finished 11-of-14 from the line, his free throws icing the win, but the night belonged to the elder statesman.
“I was tired,” Luka said. “Mentally, I wasn’t there much. I’m just glad we got a win.”
The win was a testament to layered strength. It was Deandre Ayton’s defensive versatility, switching onto Tyrese Maxey, who scored 28 points to lead Philadelphia, and bothering Embiid, who poured in 16 points on 4-of-21 shooting.
It was the team bending but not breaking after a 10-point first-half deficit. It was, as Redick noted, the luxury of having multiple suns in a solar system.
“Some nights… we played through LeBron a lot in the second half tonight. Down the stretch, we played through him,” Redick said.
For James, the win was a personal reaffirmation after injuries and a streak-snapping quiet night in Toronto. He needed the win to show that he still had the magic he’s carried for 23 seasons inside him.
He has it. He has the calm. He has the clutch gene. He now has 1,015 regular-season wins, surpassing Robert Parish for sole possession of second place on the all-time list. A number that speaks of longevity, excellence, and nights like this—nights where he observes, he calculates, and then, decisively, he strikes.
The Lakers will board their flight back to Los Angeles 2-1 on a taxing East Coast trip, and 17-6 on the season.
They will carry many things as they head home: their luggage, Dončić’s historic triple-double and another notch in the win column.
But they also carry the feeling, the secure knowledge that in the grinding heart of a close game, they have an ageless weapon.
A player who can, with a single shot, silence an arena and show the annals of NBA lore that legends don’t fade—they wait for their moment to roar.
Every day is a new experience for Rotary Youth Exchange student Leo Canudas — including the area’s recent snowfalls. The United States was on the shortlist of countries Canudas wanted to attend school in for the year, after years of asking his mom when it would be his turn to spend a year abroad as part of the Rotary Youth Exchange. He did not know anything about Wisconsin when he was finally told he had been accepted and where he would be going. He did learn that Wisconsin is “full of cheese” and that it can get pretty cold. When he arrived at Gibraltar this past fall, he discovered that American school days are longer than those in Bolivia, but he quickly immersed himself after deciding to join the football team.
Canudas’ fall at Gibraltar included being named homecoming king and scoring a touchdown on his first and only carry of the game. A boxer in his home country, Canudas is also taking up another sport he has never played before: basketball. He says it is all part of the Rotary Youth Exchange experience and adds that sometimes you only have one chance to do something — and you should take advantage of it when it comes up.
Canudas will be enrolled at Gibraltar until the end of the school year, by which point he hopes to catch a Packers game and a boxing match before he goes home. You can learn more about the Rotary Youth Exchange program at this link.
HEAR THE STORY ABOUT CANUDAS’ TOUCHDOWN IN THIS YEAR’S GIBRALTAR HOMECOMING GAME
