Despite Owensboro Catholic’s high intensity, Daviess County’s offense was too overpowering, resulting in a 7-0 loss for the Aces.
The Panthers took no time getting on the board in this one, as junior Hayden Boswell found the back of the net in the second minute to give them an early 1-0 lead.
Owensboro Catholic nearly knotted things up at 1-1 in the 13th minute, but the header sailed over the goal following the free kick.
Daviess County responded minutes later by expanding its lead, as junior Dax Sandifer got in front of the defender and headed in a corner kick to make it 2-0 in the 15th minute.
Sandifer connected again a minute later, scoring on a rebound to make it a 3-0 game. The Panthers continued to pile it on in the 21st minute, with a goal from junior Sean Higgs to make it 4-0.
Owensboro Catholic was able to hold Daviess County to just the four goals in the first half, going into the locker room looking to pull off a comeback.
But the Panthers had other ideas, expanding on their lead in the second half. Higgs earned his second goal of the day after following up a rebound, making it 5-0 in the 47th minute.
Senior Carson Thomas got in on the action in the 65th minute, with junior Nate Dailey scoring a minute later to make it 7-0 Daviess County. This more than enough for the Panthers to secure the win and a spot in the 9th District Championship.
Head Coach Doug Sandifer said that they wanted to put pressure on the Aces early and were able to do just that.
“We really impressed upon the guys that we really wanted to come out aggressively from the start,” Sandifer said. “We’ve been kind of in a habit in the last few games of the regular season coming out slow and kind of working our way in the game and we wanted to change that. We wanted to set the tone of the game and figure out what they were gonna be doing defensively.”
With five different players recording goals for Daviess County, Sandifer said it’s huge for them to have so much depth on both sides of the ball at this point in the season.
“It’s great,” Sandifer said. “There’s so many guys who can put the ball in the back of the net for us and it just makes us a little more dangerous and a little more difficult to focus on one or two guys.”
While the score didn’t end in their favor, Owensboro Catholic Head Coach Andy Donohoe said that he was pleased with the fight his team showed.
“There’s no shame in their performance,” Donohoe said. “We gave it absolutely everything we could… This district is such a competitive district, but they’re [Daviess County] head and shoulders above the rest.”
Owensboro Catholic finishes the year with an overall record of 4-8-1 on the season with a district record of 0-7. Despite the struggles they had at times this season, the Aces made strides as a program this year and will come back next year looking to shake things up.
“We were just talking there saying that we’re competitive again in the district,” Donohoe said. “The games with Apollo and Owensboro were fairly close games, so it’s about getting over that next hill and putting ourselves in a position to win those types of games.”
Daviess County on the other hand now has two days off, as they wait to see if they will take on Owensboro or Apollo in the 9th District Championship at 7:45 on Thursday.
“We’ll get them together tomorrow and do some light stuff and then obviously we don’t know who we’re playing yet, so it’s really again about working on us,” Sandifer said. “Then we’ll know by Wednesday who our opponent is going to be and then we’ll focus a little bit more on the exact opponent then.”
