The quest for a third consecutive state championship appearance for the Daviess County boys soccer team begins today as they host South Warren. It’s the fifth year in a row the Panthers have advanced to state, and they could win the championship for the second time in three seasons.
Each of the previous trips came after taking down Owensboro in the Region 3 championship, and this season was no different. Daviess County beat the Red Devils four times this year, most recently a 6-2 win in the Region 3 title game.
The Panthers (20-2-1) will now host a semi-state against South Warren (15-8-1), who beat Daviess County 3-1 a few weeks ago. The Spartans took down Bowling Green 6-1 to win the Region 4 championship.
It was one of only two losses on the season for the Panthers, and was one of only three times they failed to score multiple goals. They had success on both sides of the ball, outscoring opponents 123-26, and they kept opponents scoreless in nine games.
South Warren struggled in the middle of the season, going 1-7 before the win over Daviess County started the current five-game win streak. The Spartans have outscored opponents 92-41 this year. While they’ve only played two matches without scoring, they’ve scored a single goal in six contests and have only recorded three shutouts all year.
The winner of Tuesday’s match will advance to the quarterfinal in Lexington on Saturday, and they will face the winner of Highlands (20-1-3) and Montgomery County (17-3-1).
Daviess County has a chance to reach the state title game for the third consecutive year. In 2016, they took down Covington Catholic 2-1 in a penalty kick shootout, though last season they fell 3-0 to St. Xavier.
This year, they’ve got several players who they can rely on for goals, starting with Brian Winkler (35 goals, 17 assists). They also got help from Jacob Boling (26 goals, 16 assists), Max Miller (16 goals, 19 assists) and Hunter Clark (16 goals, 10 assists).
