There was one sure thing heading into Tuesday night’s 8th District boys’ soccer semifinal between the Hopkinsville Tigers and the Christian County Colonels. The loser of the match was playing the final match in program history, while the winner would have at least two more matches before venturing off into the high school soccer history books.
The top-seeded Tigers were apparently not ready to be a part of history just yet as Hopkinsville got on the board early and cruised on to an 8-0 win over the Colonels in a match that ended at halftime due to the 8-goal rule.
While Hopkinsville’s offense was able to put up eight goals in just forty minutes of play, it was the Tiger defense that made sure the Hopkinsville season would continue on. The Tigers did not allow Christian County a single shot on goal while coming up with 18 of their own.
Hopkinsville got on the board just 3:20 into the match when Rayan Elizalde found the net through traffic in the box to give the Tigers the early 1-0 lead. The Tigers scored again at 10:45 as Anthony Evangelista deflected the ball off his leg into the net off a corner kick, moving the lead out to 2-0.
The Hopkinsville attack kept the pedal down as Jason Macario took a pass and scored off the left side to make it 3-0. Just under four minutes later, he scored again off an assist from Erick Hernandez and the lead was 4-0 at the 17:45 mark.
Rayan Elizalde got open on a run down the middle and found the net at 22:00, extending the margin out to 5-0. He scored again at 32:45 off an assist from Gavin Harton and the Tigers were pulling away at 6-0.
In an example of what kind of night it was for the Colonels, at 34:20, Christian County was attempting to clear out a shot attempt from the Tigers when the goalie’s kick deflected off the back of one of his own defenders and right back into the goal, making it a 7-0 match.
Mikel Ramirez closed out the scoring for the night on a goal at the 36:00 mark to get to the 8-0 lead.
Hopkinsville improves to 10-6-1 with the win and now advances to Thursday night’s championship game to take on University Heights Academy.
Christian County finishes its final season in program history at 3-13-0. The Colonels lose their final two matchups against the Tigers. Christian County’s final win over Hopkinsville was in last year’s 8th District tournament.
