On Saturday, October 19th, the Woodford County boys Soccer team played in the Region 8 championship against Collins. The team had played Collins not too long before in the District championship, winning 2-0. This would be the third time the teams had met this year, and Woodford had yet to lose. Nothing changed on Saturday as the boys advanced to the state tournament for the first time in twenty years, thanks to Leland Newell’s game winner with 12 seconds left in the game.
The boys then went on to play Butler in the first round of the state tournament. Butler went up early in the game after scoring on a free kick, and Woodford was down 1-0 at halftime. Nonetheless, they came out in the second half with a couple of early chances. Ian Sergent scored a long freekick to tie up the game. This goal gave Woodford all the momentum, keeping Butler on their heels for the next 20 minutes. This run capped off with a goal from Silas Damm off of a free kick taken by Ian Sergent. This gave the Jackets a 2-1 lead heading into the later end of the second half. This lead didn’t last too long though, and Butler scored on the counterattack two minutes later, tying the game 2-2. For the next 10 minutes, the game was back and forth, both teams had good chances but couldn’t find the back of the net. This all changed when Butler’s goalie got a red card after taking out Silas when he was in clean on the goal. Butler had to finish the game with 10 players and had to put in a new goalie since their starter got ejected. This freed up the midfield for Woodford, and Leland Newell was able to put away another free kick from Ian, to go up 3-2 with 5 minutes left. To end the game, Butler went full attack, but it wasn’t enough. The Yellowjackets moved on to the elite 8.
In the Elite 8, the boys would play Daviess County, who makes the Elite 8 and Final 4 almost every year. Like Butler, Daviess went up early in the game after a shot that was deflected and went in. The Jackets were once again down 1-0 going into halftime. Woodford came out fast in the 2nd half, and Isaac Howard scored a little less than 10 minutes in. No more scoring happened in the rest of the regulation, but it was an entertaining last 30 minutes. The game headed into overtime. In overtime there are two five-minute halves, whoever scores first wins the game. Daviess had an early chance in the first period of overtime, but nothing else happened the rest of the time and the team went into penalty kicks. Earle Stilwell went first and barely missed left. Daviess responded with a goal. Next for the Jackets was Leland Newell, and he scored. Daviess scored again and now Brendan Burke was next to shoot. Brendan scored his, putting lots of pressure on the Daviess County player, who missed. Now Ian Sergent was up to shoot, and he scored his. However, the referee thought that he had stopped in his run up to take the shot, so he had to redo it. He took the penalty again but missed. This meant that if the next Daviess player would score, they would win. He ended up scoring and the Yellowjackets lost a heartbreaker to end the season.
All in all, this was a great season for Woodford County, ending the drought of not being in the state tournament for 20 years, and they look to do the same next year.
