A week after taking down Apollo for their seventh-straight 9th District Tournament title, the Daviess County Panthers were back at it again Thursday as they beat the Eagles at Muhlenberg County for their seventh-straight 3rd Region Tournament championship.
The Panthers took down the Eagles 5-1 as they now wait to see who they’ll take on at semi-state as the 1st Region final is tonight with McCracken County and Marshall County. Whoever wins the 1st Region Tournament will host DC on Saturday.
Panther coach Doug Sandifer he never wants his team to take for granted the fact that they’ve been so successful during the postseason.
“They know each one is a different team and a different group,” he said. “Every year is a different makeup of players and we talk about you can’t assume anything. This may be your only shot at one. Whether you’re a sophomore or a senior, you’re playing for this one because it may be the only time you get to play for one.
“Obviously we always talk about our tradition and what’s expected and the kids understand that. I hope they play as much for the name on the front as they do anything else and I think they do these days.”
For the first part of Thursday’s contest, each team was still trying to figure out where they could take chances against the familiar opposition.
Sandifer said his team may have been a little timid early on.
“I thought we played fine after the first 20:00,” he said. “First 20:00, we had some guys that were tight, a little nervous. I had a freshman starting at right-back in a region final. He settled in and got his nerves under him and he was fine but I think some others, a region final is a region final. Even the experienced senior is going to play a little tight, play with some nerves until they get settled in and I thought we were just tentative. We weren’t aggressive, we weren’t going at them. After that, obviously the first goal kind of settled us down.”
Carson Thomas got the Panthers on the board with 12:00 left in the first half when he took a cross from Hayden Boswell and buried it in the back of the net.
With less than a minute to go in the first half, Hayden “Rooney” Glover score to give DC a 2-0 lead and momentum going into halftime.
“I thought we missed some opportunities in the first half,” Sandifer said. “After that first goal, we were putting a lot of pressure on their goal. Probably got a little frustrated we didn’t get couple more in. We had some nice crosses come across that we didn’t finish but we also had some overhit crosses that didn’t put us in scoring position and we’ve kind of been dealing with that all season.
“You’re hoping we’re waiting to peak at the right time on those crosses but overall, I’m not complaining at all about the effort tonight. It went in spurts and went in ebbs and flows.”
Freshman Eli Watkins made it 3-0 early in the second half before the Eagles got on the board just past the halfway point.
Sophomore Teranse Twihenya sent a laser by the Panther keeper to cut the deficit to 3-1 but DC put the game away in the final minutes with another goal from Glover and also a score from Tanner Andersen.
Glover, or Rooney as he’s known by Sandifer and DC nation, said the win is an amazing feeling and it doesn’t matter that he’s been able to enjoy that feeling before.
“Everyone is special, every single one,” he said.
Glover said it’s all about doing what they’ve learned in practice.
“We just do what our gameplan is always to do and it works,” he said. “Coach Sandifer is the man.”
Apollo coach Ryan Poirier and his team broke record after record this season for the Eagles and he was proud of his team as they made their first regional final appearance since 1992.
“Much improved from the first two times we played them,” he said of his teams play. “I thought the whole game we played them tough and we played them hard. Honestly, I thought we if got that goal, I kind of thought we had a little bit of momentum. We started getting some more offense, pressuring them a little bit.”
The Eagles graduate several seniors, including leading scorer Harrison Bowman, and other standout starters.
Poirier said this is now a chance for the younger players to make their mark.
“I’m very proud of the season, I’m very proud of the kids effort,” he said. “It’s been a heck of a ride. All the records we’ve been breaking as far as how long we’ve gone to do different things. It’s a heck of a team. It’s going to be sad to see the seniors go, exciting to see kids come back and mix in with some of our younger kids coming up. It’s an exciting time to be an Apollo Eagle.
“It hurts right now but it’s that balance of ‘We’re the region runners-up, that’s awesome and man, we don’t get to go to state, the seasons over.’”
Apollo ends the season at 11-5 and despite the shortened season, it’s the Eagles most wins since 2017 when they finished 12-7-1.
Daviess County goes into semi-state with a record of 13-2-2.
