Columbus assistant Madison See hoping to finish what she started

Madison See remembers her trip to the state championship game with the Columbus girls soccer team in 2012.

She scored a goal, the only score in a state championship in Columbus history, and had a chance at another that would have tied the score and potentially given the Lady Blue Devils a chance at pulling off a victory.

Instead, they fell to Allatoona, 2-1, in their first ever trip to a state final. She graduated that year, and watched from afar as Columbus lost again in the 2013 championship to Marist.

Now in her first season as an assistant coach with Columbus, she has helped lead the team back to a state championship game, and she’s hoping she can finish what she started as a freshman back in 2009.

That’s the word she’s used to help motivated the team this season. Finish.

Knowing how close the program has been for years and how difficult it was to get there, See has preached to the players finishing what she, and those before her, started when Columbus began building itself into an elite soccer program around the turn of the century.

“I want our word to be finish,” See said. “We’ve made it to state before, we’ve gone to the final four before, but we haven’t finished that task yet.”

Columbus will face McIntosh in the Class 5A state championship at 5 p.m. Saturday at Mercer University. See credited the players for making that goal a reality, but head coach Rusty Oliver has consistently tipped his proverbial cap to See for the work she has put in as an assistant.

As a player, See was fantastic. She was named the All-Bi-City girls player of the year three straight times, from 2010-12. As a coach, she has been equally effective.

Despite being in her first year out of college — she played three full seasons at Davidson before sitting out her senior year due to injury — she has been an experienced and calming presence to her team.

“It’s been great having Madison on staff just as someone who has been there,” Oliver said. “She scored a goal in a state championship game, the only Columbus High player to ever do that. … She played college soccer, and she’s a female who can relate to these girls. Having a coach closer to their age, who is the same gender. And she knows what she’s doing. I’ve leaned on her, and she’s been great. We bounce ideas off of each other. It’s just been a great dynamic.”

And even though she’s no longer player, she and Oliver are hoping the team can win it all for everyone that has helped build the program into what it is today.

“It’s exciting to be back there,” See said. “We went as far as we can go. We want to win, and we want to bring it back here.”

This story was originally published May 13, 2016 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Columbus assistant Madison See hoping to finish what she started."