Daviess County boys’ soccer poured it on offensively, using a strong second half response and a hat trick from senior Tanner Anderson to earn a 7-1 victory over Owensboro Catholic.
While the Panthers were controlling the pace of play from the gate and had multiple chances, it wasn’t until the 18th minute that they were able to find the back of the net with a goal from junior Nate Dailey.
Daviess County expanded on its lead seven minutes later, as a questionable call led to a penalty kick, with Anderson scoring to put them up 2-0.
That was the first of many goals for Anderson on the night, as his second one came less than 30 seconds into the second half.
Owensboro Catholic showed signs of life shortly after Anderson’s goal, with Aaron Self scoring to cut the Aces’ deficit to 3-1. However, the Panthers responded strongly.
Junior Dax Sandifer started the second half rally, scoring to make it a 4-1 game in the 53rd inning, with goals from junior Ahmed Abdullahi, junior Sean Higgs and Anderson following.
“We started playing a little bit faster I think, which is what we wanted to do from the beginning,” Head Coach Doug Sandifer said. “But again I think it goes back to they got tired. You could tell. My goal was to have them fatigued in the second half and I think that once again just wore them down with the numbers we have.”
This outpouring of offense was more than enough to give Daviess County a 7-1 season-opening win.
Sandifer said that he was thrilled with Anderson’s play and that the team has more than enough firepower on the roster.
“We need Tanner to score and he’s certainly capable of scoring,” Sandifer said. “So I’m glad he had a big night tonight. We’ve got plenty of other guys that are also capable of scoring… Sean Higgs is gonna score a lot of goals for us, Hayden Boswell—if he’s not scoring he’s setting someone up—and other guys, you saw Ahmed come in. He’s an attacker and dangerous too.”
Owensboro Catholic Head Coach Andy Donohoe said that it was exhaustion that led to the Aces’ demise in the end. Regardless, he was proud of his team’s play.
“Overall, we asked them to be competitive,” Donohoe said. “For the most part we don’t have the depth on the bench that they do or most teams do. We’ve got kids that just aren’t quite ready for this next level yet, so we’re iron-manning it with the 11, 12, 13 players that go in. So I couldn’t ask any more of them.”
Daviess County now sits at 1-0 with a week before its next game against Owensboro on Aug. 19, while Owensboro Catholic will also look to bounce back on Aug. 19 against Apollo.
