The Red Devils were able to work themselves into a three-way tie for second place in the district on Tuesday, defeating Owensboro Catholic for the second time this season with a 2-0 victory at home.
Owensboro came out of the gates aggressive, quickly taking control in the battle for possession time. However, it wasn’t until about the 15th minute that they were able to get some shots on goal.
The Red Devils couldn’t break through until the 28th minute, when a cross on a corner found sophomore Romer Payne’s feet amidst chaos in the box. Despite senior keeper Parker Jones’ best efforts, he couldn’t make the close-range save just in front of the net and Owensboro claimed a 1-0 lead.
Owensboro carried its lead into the second half, controlling the possession battle still but just missing on some chances offensively. That was until the final 10 minutes, where the Aces started to apply much more pressure in order to get a game-tying goal.
Owensboro Catholic’s best opportunity came in the 78th minute, where senior Austin Martin drilled the crossbar on a free kick. The Aces were inches away from knotting the game up at 1-1, but instead the Red Devils countered quickly and got a goal from junior Sang Thang to secure the 2-0 victory at home.
Owensboro Head Coach Ryan Haley was pleased with how hard his team played on the night, stepping up with guys out for health reasons and sticking to the team’s identity in a big district win.
“This game we felt like this was an opportunity to play to our strengths,” Haley said. “Which is spacing, playing the ball to feet and stretching a team out. They are dangerous on the counter, so there are some attacking guys that are attacking that we gotta leave on the back line just for protection against that counter. But I just think we were ourselves tonight and I’m really proud of them.”
Haley was also pleased with his team’s offensive execution, saying that they battled to win the ball throughout the game to help them defeat Owensboro Catholic for the second time this season.
“I liked the way we moved the ball for most of the game,” Haley said. “They fought. They fought for 50-50 balls, for second balls, we had guys step up when other guys were hurt and at the end of the day we ended up winning. Now it’s going to be a blind draw basically.”
Prior to the game Haley and his coaching staff talked to his players about being one cohesive unit, with family being at the forefront. He said that this is what helped them come out and be the aggressor for most of the match.
“Collectively, we spoke tonight about family,” Haley said. “We laid out all of their past season pictures since they’ve been with me in middle school and we talked about how we are a family. Tonight our family was being threatened, [so I said] ‘what would we do if our realy families were being threatened.’ That was the tempo we wanted to go out with tonight.”
Haley wanted to give credit to his coaching staff for helping drill home the sentiment, while also being immensely helpful in training the players to become the best they can be in games and in practice.
“We have tremendous help from our assistant coaches Montrez Mason and Hayden Sovar,” Haley said. “They really help train these boys up and without their help today probably wouldn’t be possible.”
Owensboro now sits at 6-5-2 overall and 2-4 in district play, forcing a three-way tie for the No. 2 seed in the district tournament. With the result of the tie up in the air at the moment, Haley hopes this win will help them come together even more and finish the regular season strong with their postseason goals at the forefront of the Red Devils’ minds.
“This brings hope,” Haley said. “Hope is a powerful thing. Our goal this year was to make it into region and to get to that regional final game and see what happens from there… I think we’ve had some hiccups along the way trying to meet that goal, but we’ve put ourselves in a position where we have a chance to achieve that. Now I think we just gotta keep this family theme going and be there for each other, play for each other and play for the six guys we have leaving next year who don’t have a second chance.”
Owensboro Catholic is part of the three-way tie now at 2-4 themselves, sitting at 6-4 overall. Despite not getting the win to secure the No. 2 seed, Donohoe was pleased with his team’s fight in the second half.
“Disappointed in the result, but performance-wise particularly in the second half we were much stronger,” Donohoe said. “Probably a little unlucky with the one off the crossbar in the last minute and then we had to go forward and they caught us on the counter attack to score the second. But I thought maybe we started the game a little light. I think maybe we played the occasion a little bit more than the game.”
The Aces applied more pressure towards the end of the game trying to create some offense, ending up surrendering the final dagger. However, Donohoe and Owensboro Catholic would much rather go out with a bang and compete for the win than suffer a one-goal loss.
“We just had to go for it,” Donohoe said. “You’re putting bodies in and maybe a little bit more cautious at the start, but once you start throwing people in it can cause problems. Obviously it exposes you at the back that cost us the second goal in the end, but you’d rather lose 2-0 and throw the kitchen sink at them then take a moral victory at 1-0. That doesn’t sit well. We’re all competitive and want to try and get the win.”
While the Aces may not have reached their goal of being the outright second seed in the district tournament, Donohoe and company have their heads held high knowing that they can finish the regular season strong and compete in the postseason.
“We’ve been competitive in every district game,” Donohoe said. “The two that we won were really close games, the two that we’ve lost against Owensboro went until the last kick of the game and the two games against DC we put in a shift and at least the second game was really close. I think we can be positive about where we are.”
