Caldwell County summoned up arguably its best effort of the year to keep its season alive Monday night.
The Tigers battled past Hopkins County Central 4-2 in a physical matchup in the 7th District semifinal round at Madisonville-North Hopkins High School’s Donley Field.
Caldwell (4-10-2) will face the host Maroons (14-6-1) in Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. district championship match. Both teams have also earned bids to the 2nd Region tournament next week at the Stadium of Champions in Hopkinsville.
The regular season match between the Tigers and the Storm went to overtime before Hopkins Central pulled out a 5-4 decision. The postseason matchup appeared to be headed that way again when the squads went to halftime tied 1-1.
But Caldwell took the lead for good when Matthew Moll came up with his first career goal with 32:19 left in the contest. Following a corner kick from Collin Turmero, Chase Lantrip redirected the ball toward the net, where Moll was waiting on the doorstep to punch the ball past the goalkeeper.
The Tigers then went up 3-1 with 23:43 remaining in the contest on a perfectly-placed free kick from 30 yards out by Kale Turmero. Turmero’s blast found the top left corner of the net to give Caldwell a two-goal edge.
Hopkins Central (6-7-3) got right back in the match when Cohl Hoard finished in front of the net with a header. That cut the Tiger lead to 3-2 with still 19:36 to play.
But Caldwell regained its two-goal edge when a crossing pass from Kale Turmero found its way to Deacon Carter on the far side of the box. Carter delivered a shot into the far side of the net to make it 4-2 with 10:52 remaining.
Caldwell was able to weather several Storm attacks in the second half, including one shot that got under the crossbar but somehow stayed out of the net and was cleared by the Tiger defense.
For the night, Hopkins Central held a 23-12 advantage in shots, but Grayson Harris came up with 14 saves to limit the Storm to just the two tallies.
Caldwell now leads the all-time series with Hopkins Central 27-10-1.
Hopkins Central struck first in the district semifinal contest when Brennan Scott took a pass from Jude Mitchell and scored from in close. That came with 26:55 left in the first half.
Caldwell drew even at the 10:29 mark when Lantrip flicked a corner kick back to Sutton Ritchey, and Ritchey blasted one into the net to make it a 1-1 game.
The Tigers will need an even-stronger effort to challenge Madisonville in the district title tilt on Tuesday.
Caldwell has dropped 18 straight matches to the Maroons and has beaten Madisonville just once in 27 meetings all-time.
Meanwhile, the Maroons have won 12 straight district championships as well as the last two 2nd Region titles.
