After giving up a pair of first-half goals Tuesday night, the Daviess County girls’ soccer team battled back and eventually scored a golden goal in overtime to escape with a 4-3 road victory over Owensboro Catholic.
The Lady Panthers (12-2, 5-0 9th District) used two goals from Kenlee Newcom to tie the game at 3-3 before the end of regulation, and the first five-minute half of overtime went scorelesss.
Only 28 seconds into the second half, Chloe Hinchliffe capped off a quick attack by booting in a shots that barely made it under the crossbar to win the game.
Hinchcliffe said the team was nervous going into overtime, but knew if they played hard they would come out with a win.
“When you play with your heart you’re always going to show out,” she said. “We just needed to pick up our intensity and follow through with it. But it’s huge to win over Catholic. It always feels great to win a district game.”
Catholic (4-4-1, 3-2) had the upper hand for the majority of the game, and they quickly took a 1-0 lead with a goal by Ashton Logsdon. Emma Eyre later scored on a low shot from a free kick for a lead that remained through the half.
DC’s Meredith Campbell scored on an assist from Ashlyn Payton to cut the deficit to one goal, but Catholic’s Whitnee Rice converted on a header to put the Lady Aces ahead 3-1 midway through the half.
Newcom’s first goal came with about 14 minutes to play when she got past the Catholic defense, and her equalizer came seven minutes later with an assist from Campbell.
Newcom said she didn’t feel like the team came ready to play at the start.
“One of our JV players got hurt and I think that was in everyone’s head,” she said. “Second half we all got upset and realized we needed to play for her. It was time to show up and play and I think we made some changes and everyone got mad and we showed the dog in us.”
“Being down 2-0 is never good. We knew we were better than that.”
Lady Aces head coach Lindsey Overby said with a small roster makes it tough to stay fresh for the entire game — 13 of her 16 players saw action Tuesday.
“We’re improving, that’s obvious,” she said. ‘We just have to figure out how to hang tight when we’re up. We’ll be ready when it counts. There are a lot of nerves when it comes to Daviess County. They are our big rivals.”
Daviess County will return home Thursday to host Evansville North. Catholic will play in the All “A” Classic Saturday against Glasgow.
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2019 soccer coverage is presented by Worth Insurance Group.
