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Cloudy skies. High 59F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..
A few clouds from time to time. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: December 27, 2024 @ 2:51 am
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard celebrates a goal in a game earlier this season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard pushes the ball up the field in a game earlier this season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard is The Daily News Player of the Year for the 2024 high school boys’ soccer season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard is the area boys’ soccer player of the year.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard celebrates a goal in a game earlier this season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard pushes the ball up the field in a game earlier this season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard is The Daily News Player of the Year for the 2024 high school boys’ soccer season.
Croatan’s Jaden Hilliard is the area boys’ soccer player of the year.
BROAD CREEK
Croatan’s Jaden Hillard prefers to take the glass-half-full approach as he reflects on his senior soccer season with the Cougars.
“It was a fun season,” he said. “It was not the way I wanted to end, going out in the first round of the playoffs, but overall, we did very well with the adversity we had. We stuck with things and still came away with a conference championship.”
The Cougars indeed experienced adversity.
Not only did Croatan lose senior leader Ryan Berger to an injury, but the Cougars also faced one of the toughest schedules in the state. Croatan still finished 13-9-3 overall and 7-2-1 in the Coastal Conference for its fifth consecutive league title.
And because Hilliard led the Cougars in scoring while they had to overcome these obstacles, he is The Daily News Player of the Year for the 2024 high school boys’ soccer season.
The midfielder was given the nod as voted by the area coaches and the newspaper’s sports staff.
“Jaden’s competitiveness and his drive is what makes him good,” Croatan coach Paul Slater said. “He is always looking to do what it takes to help the team win.”
Being named area player of the year is yet another honor for Hilliard as she was also named player of the year in the Coastal 3-A Conference and 3-A all-state by the N.C. Soccer Coaches Association for the second consecutive season.
As a senior, Hilliard finished with 26 goals and 10 assists after he had 20 goals and seven assists as a junior.
His best overall effort came when he recorded five goals and two assists in a 7-4 win at White Oak on Oct. 22. Hilliard also had three goals and an assist in a 6-4 victory over West Johnston on Sept. 14.
He added three more matches with two goals and an assist, had three more performances with two scores and six others with one goal.
Talk about being consistent.
“He has a willingness to run at people and he’s very technically strong,” Slater said. “He’s good at carrying the ball and other teams are scared of him when he runs at them because he’s good at 1v1, good in tight spaces and he makes things look easy.”
Hilliard, however, wasn’t the only Croatan attacker to have a fine season as sophomore Kannon McBride complemented the senior with 22 goals and 15 assists.
Together, Hilliard and McBride formed a strong 1-2 punch on the pitch as they combined for 48 of Croatan’s 69 goals and 25 of the team’s 40 assists.
“Kannon is a very intelligent soccer player,” Hilliard said. “He and I understand and know each other, and we worked well together.”
McBride also had admiration for Hilliard.
“Every game I knew Jaden was the most athletic player on the field and if anyone was going to make a big-time play when we needed it, it would be him,” McBride said. “The chemistry we had was special and we’ll definitely never forget it. It has been a pleasure playing with him the past two years.”
The Hilliard-McBride combination was especially big as Croatan played a difficult nonconference schedule that included games with Jacksonville, New Hanover, Willow Spring, J.H. Rose, Laney, Rolesville, Ashley and First Flight.
Croatan started the season 6-7-2 following an 0-3-2 spell.
“Our coaches would tell us that what we were doing was pretty impressive because of all of the good teams we were playing,” Hilliard said. “I loved it. It is very fun to see different competition because it makes us better. It made me have to find passes faster and look ahead so that I knew what to do before the play.”
That mindset helped Hilliard have some pretty dominating performances.
“I just wanted to go fast at the defense, get past them and find the back of the net,” he said. “You want to stay humble, but it definitely was a good feeling knowing you were one of the best players on the field and that you can do what you wanted.”
Chris Miller can be contacted via email at cmiller@jdnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @jdnsports.
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