The UHA Blazers picked up their first win over the Madisonville-North Hopkins Maroons since the 2020 region tournament on Monday night in the season opener for both teams. Hayden Hunt sparked the Blazers with a two-goal performance as UHA knocked off the Maroons 4-2 at Givens Field.
Coming into the match, the Blazers had lost five straight matches to Madisonville.
Hunt got the Blazers off to a very quick start. Just three minutes into the contest, he took a ball that was bouncing around in front of the net and directed it into the goal to put UHA on top 1-0.
However, the Maroons responded just two minutes later to even the match at 1-1. Dominic Blanford beat UHA keeper Hayden Fitzsimmons going across the face of the goal for the score.
Madisonville found the net again, just over 11 minutes later, as the Maroons took a 2-1 lead when Ben Crouch took a shot from the left side and put it into the right corner of the net. But that would be the last ball in the net of the night for Madisonville.
At the 25:00 mark, Lincoln Hauret scored from right in front of the net to pull the Blazers back even with the Maroons at 2-2.
Not long after, at 28:30, Caidence Gibson took the rebound of a missed shot from Hayden Hunt and slid it in behind the Madisonville keeper to put University Heights back in front at 3-2.
The score remained that way until the 65:00 mark when Hayden Hunt drilled a shot from about the 18-yard mark, pushing the Blazer lead out to 4-2.
The Blazers were able to hold and then extend their lead in the second half despite playing a man down for the final 35 minutes after they were assessed a red card in the opening minutes of the second half.
Unofficially, each team had nine shots on goal for the contest. The Maroons’ Adam Devine had four saves, while UHA’s Hayden Fitzsimmons had seven.
UHA (1-0) is off until next Monday when the Blazers will take on Lyon County.
Madisonville-North Hopkins (0-1) gets back to action Thursday when the Maroons host Caldwell County in a district contest.
