For the second straight year, Trigg County’s record-setting girls’ soccer season came to an end at the hands of Henderson County in the region tournament.
Ashton Lynam scored four goals to lead the Lady Colonels to a 4-0 win Wednesday on their home field. Henderson will play University Heights Academy in the championship match on Thursday.
Lynam, who plans to graduate high school at Christmas to begin her college career at Western Kentucky University, scored four goals for the third straight postseason game. She has scored all eight of Henderson’s goals in the region tournament.
After both teams spent the first 14 minutes Wednesday feeling each other out, Lynam struck first when she redirected a corner kick into the net.
“That goal was huge. Obviously, we have a really good forward and I think everyone probably game plans against her. So when they took her away for most of the game, those early goals were crucial because, at that point, we don’t have to necessarily score again,” said Henderson County coach Ben Dempsey.
One of Trigg’s best defenders in the first half was the goalpost. Two of Lynam’s shots banged off the post to keep the deficit from increasing.
Lynam missed the post in the 34th minute and drilled home a left-footed shot from the top of the box.
With Henderson County up 2-0, that allowed Dempsey to drop a player or two and further take away Trigg’s offensive advantages.
“I felt like we were going to have to start quick,” said Trigg County coach Jason Hite. “They had a great defensive plan for us. I have some great athletes back there, and (Henderson defender) Taylor Dunn did a fantastic job defending the wing for sure.”
The shot count was even at 6-6 in the first half, but Trigg had trouble connecting with passes and Henderson was able to get to more 50-50 balls. Henderson also took away Trigg’s advantage in the middle.
“They closed down our center forwards and closed down the right wing on us. It really made it difficult for us to get good attacking chances,” Hite said.
With Henderson dropping more defenders with the 2-0 lead, Trigg’s first shot of the half came 16 minutes into the second half.
“It felt like if you let one of them play that long ball in, you could see it causes a lot of problems. So we’ve been talking really the last couple of weeks, not just for that game, but really just dealing with those first balls and just kind of taking away space,” Dempsey said.
Trigg County was outshot 17-9, including 11-3 in the second half.
Lynam added two goals in the final four minutes for the final margin. They gave her 50 for the season.
“If it’s 0-0 at halftime, this game probably comes down to overtime or PKs or whatever. Hats off to Trigg. They competed really well. The two late goals, just kind of popped up out of nowhere, to be honest,” Dempsey said. “It was the first 15 minutes and last 15 minutes of the game that really sealed it. In the middle stretches, they gave us a lot of fits in midfield. And we struggled to adjust right away.”
The shutout loss was Trigg County’s first of the season and first since a 6-0 loss to Henderson County in last year’s region championship game. The Lady Wildcats set a program record last year with 16 wins. They bettered that in 2023 to the tune of an 18-3 record.
“We’ve set the standard the last two years. That’s who we are as a team. We’ve worked very hard on changing our style of play and culture over the last two or three years. This is not a one-year project. We’ve been working on it very hard the last couple of years,” Hite said.
