WATKINSVILLE — Before they could tie their cleats, the Clifton sisters seemed to have athletic ability running through their veins.
“Sports, organized sports, has been a big part of their whole upbringing,” said Andy Clifton, the girls’ father. “It’s part of this family’s culture. It’s part of who we are.”
Alex, Sophia and Camila, three sisters on the Oconee County High School girls soccer team, have a chance to help this year’s Warriors become the first girls team in school history to win a state title three-peat.
Together.
“I’ve just realized how great it is,” said Alex, who missed playing with her sisters last season because of an ACL tear. “It’s like a sense of familiarity.”
Alex alternates between playing left wing and defense, Sophia plays center back, and Camila is the goalkeeper.
The sisters and their Warriors teammates play at Harlem in the second round Thursday as they move closer to a possible Class 3A three-peat.
Before soccer, the Clifton girls entered the realm of sports through basketball, with none other than their father as their coach. The same stood true for their father, whose own father was an assistant men’s basketball coach at Georgia from 1973 to 1978 and later a Bulldogs basketball radio color commentator.
Butch Clifton also was Andy Clifton‘s high school basketball coach at Athens Academy. Under his dad’s guidance, basketball grew to be the younger Clifton’s greatest passion in adolescence.
At Athens Academy, Andy Clifton also won a state championship for golf. Though he said he committed to play basketball at Furman University, he ultimately decided to go to UGA.
His daughters felt drawn to a different athletic path.
“(Soccer) was just something they were driven toward, and all three of them excel in different parts of the game,” he said. “They just all had a really natural knack for the game.”
The girls’ athletic inheritance did not stem only from their father’s side of the family. The sisters frequently attend UGA tennis matches with their mother, a former high school tennis player and daughter of Marisa Bilbao, a professional swimmer from Spain.
In 2016, the girls began swimming with the Athens Bulldog Swim Club while still playing basketball. Alex and Camila stopped swimming after about five years, but Sophia continued to compete at the high school level.
“Especially growing up with siblings being in the same sports and kind of always being with each other,” said Alex, “that motivation and urge to beat each other kind of came with us.”
After competing with and against one another in basketball, soccer, swimming, track and dance, the sisters began to understand the greater purpose of being involved in sportsaa.
“They had a fire and a desire to compete and be out on a field or a court or a pool competing against somebody as part of a bigger team,” their father said. “They got that early on.”
The sisters have grown into their individual strengths as soccer players.
“They’re just tall, strong, fast, powerful girls that happen to play a game that involves power and balance and speed,” their father said.
Sophia, a sophomore, is attending club soccer showcases to capture the attention of college recruiters before June 15 — the earliest she can begin direct contact with coaches per NCAA rules. For now, she is most interested in the University of Iowa for both its athletic and academic programs.
Her twin, Camila, a member of the Oconee Futbol Club alongside many of her high school teammates, also might try to play college soccer. Unlike Sophia, Camila has her eyes set on Auburn.
Alex, a junior, decided to prioritize academics following her ACL injury on the first day of practice last season. She became more involved with club leadership on campus and church groups in her community. She plans on attending UGA to major in biology on a premed track.
Even when they’re not competing, the Cliftons’ hobbies still revolve around activity and exercise. The girls are all members of Oconee County High School’s pickleball club. When they have time off, they often go to the soccer fields and train, consistently pushing one another
to improve their skills outside of scheduled practices and games.
“If I’m unsure about something,” Alex said of her sisters, “I know they’re there for encouragement or always a helping hand.”
All together on the field, the sisters will continue their playoff push to bring home an Oconee County three-peat and cement another athletic milestone into the Clifton bloodline.
Mackenzie Rodriguez is a student in the University of Georgia’s undergraduate Sports Media Certificate program.
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