Soccer star Alice Bussey is back from a season-ending injury that sidelined her for the whole 2024-25 season. Starting the new season strong, Bussey already added four goals to her stats.
Bussey had a great 2023-24 season, cementing her as a major asset for Head Coach Chris Walker’s team since her arrival in the spring of 2021. She started in all 22 games, logging 1,684 minutes played, recording seven goals and three assists on 28 shots on goal. Earning her season awards for All-ASUN First Team, Academic All-ASUN, United Soccer Coaches All-American Second Team and All-South Region First Team.
Bussey’s playing style derives from a “very technical” basis she learned with Coach Josh Otham at the Gillingham Ladies Football Club in Kent, England, and a creativity she had to develop to face players who were stronger and bigger than her. Arriving in the United States for college, she noticed a cultural difference when the sport’s focus was much stressed on physicality, speed and the time spent in the weight room.
Late June 2024, she was practicing with her summer league team when a contact play tore a ligament in her knee. The injury came just before being named for a few preseason awards, such as the Preseason All-ASUN Team and the Mac Hermann Trophy Watch List.
Excited for the 2024-25 season, Bussey said the sudden change in action was “tough.” She said it took her a long time to adjust to the fact she could do so much on the field for the team, and then, this leadership had to be done from the sideline.
“But I just knew I could be supportive to the girls in every way possible and encourage them,” Bussey said. “The girls that had seen me be so, so successful years before, trusted my opinion and trusted my advice.”
Calling Coach Walker to break the news about her injury was “the scariest moment of [her] life,” but the support he, her trainers and her teammates gave Bussey was “amazing.”
Originally from Hythe, England, her parents were back home, so former teammate Izzi Gurney-Harper looked after Bussey for post-surgery care. Athletic Trainer Anna Woods and former roommate and player Malin Andersson were also driving forces in her recovery.
But 2025 is a new and healthy year, and Bussey was ready to make up for lost time.
“It feels amazing [to be back],” Bussey said. “I don’t feel like it ever happened. If you told me last year didn’t happen, I would believe you. I feel confident with my knee, I don’t really think about injury and getting hurt again. It definitely made me a lot stronger mentally.”
On Aug. 28, 2025, UNA soccer faced Troy University at home, resulting in a 2-1 win for the Lions. Just past halftime, Bussey not only scored her first goal since her injury, but also the first goal of the season after a loss and two ties. Bringing the score to 1-1, senior Olivia Heinert later added the winning shot for 2-1.
Before this first win of the season, Bussey said she had calculated how many days it had been since she last scored a goal in the 2023-24 season. She said she wanted that goal to have come sooner, but, now that it happened, the goals started coming “one after the other.”
“I just burst out crying straight away,” Bussey said. “There are so many photos of me wiping my tears. I think it was just a relief.”
The soccer team opened Atlantic SUN Conference play on Sept. 21 with a 1-0 win against Central Arkansas. Bussey is confident the team can get far in the ASUN this season, saying the result against the Sugar Bears was a great way of opening the conference.
According to her, it was the team’s resilience that won them the game. It was “really hot,” and there was a lightning delay, but “everyone still put 110% in.”
“I honestly think we can compete to win our division,” Bussey said. “The team is great, we work really hard, we’ve got depth on and off the bench.”
