The old sports adage says it’s hard to beat a team three times in one season. Fourteen minutes into Tuesday’s 5th District soccer championship match, the Lyon County Lyons appeared on its way to making the adage truth.
Down 2-0, Trigg County scored four unanswered goals and held off a late Lyon surge for a 4-3 win in Eddyville.
The win is just the second of the season for Trigg County which has won four of the last five district titles.
It was Lyon County who struck first and fast with Deven Guess scoring off a feed from Luis De Alaminos in the eighth minute. Six minutes later, Colt Bannister scored his 12th goal of the season for a 2-0 Lyon lead.
Trigg made a formation change that changed the flow of the game moving forward.
“We were giving way too much space in the midfield to not get pressure on people with their heads up. So we threw Matthew Reeves at defensive mid and the game totally changed after that point,” Wildcat coach Kyle Bleidt said.
Trigg scored two goals in a six-minute stretch of the first half to tie the game at 2-2.
James Garnett scored a header off a corner kick to get Trigg on the board in the 25th minute. Alex Hurt scored off a rebound six minutes later to tie the match.
“I think they got a little down once they got the first goal scored on them,” said Lyon County coach Joe Guess. “They kind of looked down for a minute, and didn’t think they were going to come back as hard as they did. It took a little bit of restructuring, and we just had to get their heads back up.”
Trigg County’s defense stood strong in the second half, not allowing a Lyon County shot in the first 19 minutes.
Marlee Reeves gave Trigg the lead in the 56th minute, scoring on a breakaway.
Peyton Moore gave the Wildcats a huge insurance goal in the 64th minute, banging home a rebound off a missed direct kick at the top of the box.
But Lyon County wasn’t finished. Bannister scored with four minutes left to get the Lyons to within 4-3 and they got two other looks before the final whistle sounded.
“I thought (Colt’s goal) might start the fire again. I thought they got their heads up and going, but we just couldn’t finish at the end,” Guess said.
It was the third game between the teams this season decided in the final minutes. Lyon beat Trigg in overtime and in penalty kicks in the two regular season matchups – both Lyon County victories.
“I tell the boys every time we play them that I shouldn’t have to get them up for this game. It’s your rival. It’s somebody that I looked forward to playing even when I was in high school,” Bleidt said. “But our boys knew we hadn’t played them full strength all year. We were missing two boys each game and their confidence was really up. We probably had the best practice of the year yesterday that we’ve had all year. And boys were locked in all day today.”
Both Trigg County (2-9-2) and Lyon County (3-15-1) move into next week’s region tournament at Madisonville.
