If the past week is any indication, the boys’ 8th District soccer tournament should be straight fire.
One night after a 2-0 win over Hopkinsville, the University Heights Academy Blazers nipped Christian County 2-1 to gain the inside track for the district’s top seed in the postseason tournament.
The match was a typical UHA-Christian County contest – physical, chippy, and drama-filled.
In the end, it was Ollie Marschand’s first varsity goal off an assist from Matthew Hauret inside the final 10 seconds of the first half that proved to be the game-winner.
In a match filled with defense, all three goals came in the final five minutes of the half.
Griffin McCoy gave the Blazers a 1-0 lead on a perfectly placed pass from Logan Miller.
The Colonels answered three minutes later when Christian Lopez scored off a feed from Leland Creamer.
“I think in that instance we stayed strong mentally and we took that as a motivation to bounce back in this game and show them that we’re not going down quietly,” Christian County coach Avery Seeger said. “That was a really good goal and just a good attacking play.”
For UHA coach Josh Nichols, he felt his team’s showing was a 180 from Wednesday’s win over Hopkinsville.
“I thought we played a lot better tonight than we did last night. The ball possession was 100% better from the very beginning. We were stringing passes together, keeping them pinned in, and just had another phenomenal performance on defense,” he said.
UHA improved to 7-4-1 overall and 2-0 in the district. The Blazers play at Fort Campbell on Saturday and host Heritage Christian Academy on Monday as they try and wrap up the top seed in the five-team district tournament.
“There’s always room for improvement, but I was really happy with the way we played. We knew coming in, we were going to get a battle tonight from a good County team. I’m really happy with the way we played,” Nichols said.
Christian County dropped to 4-5 and saw its district record even up at 1-1. After a Monday match with Webster County, the Colonels will play Hopkinsville on Tuesday and Heritage Christian Academy on Thursday.
The Colonels have allowed seven goals in their last four matches but only have a 1-3 record.
“I think our biggest problem right now is just connecting passes. We are fairly strong defensively right now, keeping those score lines low. But we’ve got to get back to playing like we were a few games ago where we’re stringing together passes,” said Seeger, who feels his team will be ready for a return match with the Blazers in the district tournament if things pan out.
“It doesn’t matter who we play, it’s going to be a battle. And we’ve got to let this motivate us and go into every game expecting a fight. And yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”
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