The last time the Owensboro Catholic Lady Aces won a game in the KHSAA State Girls’ Soccer Tournament, none of its current players were in high school but on Saturday after in Draffenville, this era of Aces was ready to change that.
Catholic made its second trip to Marshall County this season as they fell to the Lady Marshals 7-1 earlier this year but Andy Hines and his team weren’t ready to let history repeat itself as they grabbed a 1-0 victory to advance to the final eight to take on Greenwood on Monday.
“We thought they were probably going to say that we were a pushover and I think we were better, we’ve gotten better,” he said. “We’re a better team then we were when we played them first. Better defensively and we said let’s come out and surprise them. It was a little rocky, we had to play very direct but it worked in our favor.”
The Aces were coming off of a tough game Thursday in the 3rd Region Final after they beat Daviess County 3-0 to defeat the Lady Panthers for the second time in a week.
Hines said he didn’t want to give them too much to worry about during Friday’s practice.
“We went to the field, we did a recovery session, we played a little fun game to keep our spirits up,” he said. “We didn’t really do anything tactical because there wasn’t enough time. It was just trying to have a little fun before the game.”
After both teams took some time to figure out where they could take chances, Catholic sophomore Maddie Hayden scored to give the Aces a 1-0 lead.
Hines said it was then they settled down as junior Ashton Logsdon took control.
“After the first goal, we played very direct to Ashton,” he said. “Ashton held up the ball, just like she did the other night against Daviess County. I think it’s pretty unlucky she didn’t have a PK or two tonight but it is what it is. She had one right outside the box, fell into the box … We played off of her a lot, she wins the ball. You look at her and she looks like she’s going to get pushed around and she’s dominating.”
Hines said his team had a few more chances to score but their one goal was all they would need to claim the victory and advance.
Catholic’s victory now sets up another rematch with a team they lost to earlier this season in the Lady Gators of Greenwood.
The Aces fell to Greenwood 4-1 earlier this season with Rachel Traylor scoring the lone goal for Catholic.
Hines knows Greenwood is a good team and they’ll have to have a good gameplan to take them down.
“One day at a time,” he said. “We said we wanted another trophy so we wanted to get to another game.”
