Daviess County’s offense was clicking on all cylinders on senior night, as the seniors were responsible for every single goal in a 6-0 shutout over the Eagles in front of its home crowd.
It didn’t take long for the Panthers to get on the board on senior night, as senior Tyler Wilkerson was able to find Sean Higgs just inside the top of the box in the fifth minute. He ripped into the left side of the net, giving them an early 1-0 lead.
In the 14th minute it was Wilkerson again who found the open man, hitting senior Hayden Boswell who bent one in the top right corner of the net to give Daviess County a 2-0 lead.
The Panthers were able to get one more just before the half, as Higgs hit senior Ahmed Abdullahi who took a touch before rifling one into the left side of the net to take them into halftime 3-0. Apollo had tried to put pressure on Daviess County in hopes of catching them in some offside traps, but we’re only able to get a few towards the end of the first half.
The Eagles luck didn’t change in the second half, as the Panthers came out of the locker room even more aggressive. Abdullahi got the first goal of the half, as Higgs found him in the 49th minute to make it 4-0.
Higgs would get one himself six minutes later, scoring his second goal of the day on an assist from Boswell to make it a 5-0 game. Abdullahi went on to earn a hat trick in the match as well, scoring in stride on a through ball from junior Sam Glover to take a 6-0 lead in the 69th minute and eventually close out the win.
“I was happy with the way we came out and played right off the bat in the first half,” Sandifer said. “The seniors did a good job of setting the tone of the game and getting a couple early goals and that kind of lets us loosen up a little bit. So I was pleased overall.”
The Panthers were able to ramp up the intensity in the second half, taking advantage of Apollo playing up more and finishing well on their number of chances.
“They were playing a little higher line and we kind of adjusted to that well and were able to get behind them a little bit and had some opportunities,” Sandifer said. “Everyone that got on the field tonight played with a purpose and with some effort that we needed. The goal was to obviously get a win tonight, be able to rest some people if we could because we got a game tomorrow night and a game on Saturday.”
Abdullahi finished with a hat trick in the game and Higgs added a brace, while Higgs also chipped in a pair of assists alongside Wilkerson. Boswell also had a goal and an assist each, with Glover being the lone player that wasn’t a senior to be involved in the scoring.
This was only fitting on senior night, as Sandifer was proud of his team for celebrating their journey to this point while also staying focused and getting the job done to secure the No. 1 seed in district play. Sandifer is looking to enjoy this last half of the season, noting just how special the class of 2023 is to him.
“They’re personally a special group to me,” Sandifer said. “I’ve coached most of them in that senior class since they were about 13 years old… They’re good kids. I’ve known them a long time and they’re just one of those special groups of seniors that you have. They’re going to leave a gigantic hole when they’re gone, so we’re not trying to rush to the end of this season by any means. I want to enjoy the last half of this season and ride it out with these guys. I think we’ve figured things out and what works for us and those seniors are a large part of that.”
Daviess County sits at 11-1-1 and finishes the regular season at 6-0 in district play. While the Panthers don’t know who they’ll see in the first round of the postseason just yet, Sandifer doesn’t want his crew to look too far ahead.
“Regular season district is behind us and it’s [time to] focus on the last third of the regular season,” Sandifer said. “Just wanna try to continue playing well. We’ve got some monsters coming up ahead of us in the next two or three weeks before postseason hits. We don’t know who we’ll play in district since I think the other three are all tied at this point, so we kind of have to wait and see with that. But we’ve got a lot of things to take care of before we worry about the postseason.”
Apollo on the other hand falls to 5-10 overall and 2-4 in district play, splitting its two-game road stint this week. The Eagles weren’t able to stifle Daviess County’s offense on Thursday, as they just weren’t able to find success in their gameplan.
“We had a gameplan and unfortunately in the first half we just didn’t execute it very well,” Head Coach Ryan Poirier said. “Second half we did better with it. Some parts of it got better and then parts of it that were good actually got bad… It’s disappointing. I thought we had a chance with a couple kids back tonight that had been out, but we just didn’t play very well.”
Apollo’s district record puts them in a three-way tie for second place in the district with Owensboro and Owensboro Catholic. With head-to-head and a coin toss out of the picture with three teams, a blind draw will ultimately decide the seeding.
With six games left in the regular season for the Eagles, Poirier just wants to see his team put together some complete games in hopes of being at their best by the time the district tournament starts.
“It’s like we fix something and something else gets a little messed up,” Poirier said. “We just gotta get it all going at the same time. Early in the year I thought we played really good defense, but we struggled to score. Before this we’d scored some goals in the last couple games, but the defense looked a little more leaky. We just gotta figure out a way to get it all rolling in the same direction at the same time.”
