The last time Apollo advanced to a district final, its entire roster was still in single digits as the Eagles made history at home Tuesday night.
In a thriller with Owensboro Catholic that needed sudden death PKs, Apollo downed the Aces 3-2 (5-4 PKs) to advance to Thursday’s 9th District Tournament final at AHS, their first district final since 2008.
Eagle coach Ryan Poirier said even though they beat Catholic earlier this on PKs, it wasn’t in their gameplan to do it again.
“PKs isn’t what we wanted,” he said. “We went down and something flipped in us when we went down. We scored first but I think they had a lot of the ball in the second half. I think a lot of the end of the first half, it was them. They played great, they were moving the ball and then we went down and something snapped. The ball movement picked up, the player movement picked up. You never want to go to PKs but the first time we played them we went to PKs and we beat them. The guys were confident like we’re not going to miss.”
Senior Casey Rynkowski stepped up to and made the final kick to win the game as Poirier said he wanted a leader to make that final shot.
“No. 13’s a senior, I said we’ve got to have seniors taking kicks right now,” he said.”It’s got to be those guys deciding the future of this team so we went with him. He was nervous but he stepped up and he did what seniors do.”
To get to that point, it took 90 minutes of soccer where each team could only muster two goals each. Both teams converted a PK during the game as Harrison Bowman (PK) and Teranse Twihenya scored for the Eagles and Joe Fusco (PK) and Lance Dickens scored during regulation for the Aces.
Twihenya’s goal came early in the game but it was enough to give his team 1-0 lead at the break.
Midway through the second half, Fusco converted his PK and Dickens scored a few minutes later to change the tide of the game but Poirier said that’s just what his team needed.
He said that’s when everything changed and they made a move to get themselves back in the game.
Junior goalkeeper Steven Teran made several saves throughout the game, including one in sudden death to give the Eagles a chance at the victory.
“He’s worked very hard to become the player that he is,” Poirier said of his keeper. “Super proud of him, super proud of the way he played.”
Poirier told his team they can’t look to the future and they have to worry about the current game as the first game of the district tournament is always the most important of the year.
“It doesn’t matter if we lost every game this year, won every game this year, this is the game that matters,” he said. “You’ve got to come out and win this one. You’ve got to put your best effort in this one. They took that to heart.”
Poirier said this year’s team has been special and they never give up.
“It’s been adversity, adversity, adversity and they’re so strong, they’re resilient,” he said. “I could talk for hours about this team.”
Catholic coach Andy Donohoe said he was impressed with how his team did this season given the circumstances.
“Obviously it’s such a strange year to come into things all the threat of it ending or stopping,” he said. “Credit to the players for the intensity they showed. As soon as preseason hit, we saw the intensity, we knew it was going to be a strong season for us. I thought the guys have been outstanding throughout the whole season for us.”
He said it’s a tough way to lose a game but it’s part of it and they have nothing to hang their heads about.
“I told them they have to walk out of here with their head held up,” he said. “The disappointment is palpable but one can’t be on the performance side of it, it can only be on the end result. That’s just the game sometimes. Life can be like that.”
The Eagles’ victory now sets up another battle as they take on Daviess County Thursday in the district tournament final while Catholic ends the season at 8-4.
Apollo fell to DC 5-1 this season and Poirier said he knows Tuesday’s win will be big for morale but they still have more to do to prepare.
“You can’t be like forget it, it’s too big of a win, it’s too important but it’s not the goal,” he said. “We got to enjoy it, we’ll enjoy it tonight, we’ll enjoy it a little bit at practice tomorrow but we’ll also get in some work because we can’t waste the opportunity to compete for a championship. You don’t get that, 11 years, we haven’t had a chance. When they come, you’ve got to take advantage.”
