Henderson County will play host to the boys’ second region soccer tournament this week with games starting on Monday and concluding with the championship game on Thursday. With a wide-open field and no clear-cut favorite, the Colonels will look to defend their region crown at home.
“I’m feeling really confident this year. It’s definitely possible. All these games are winnable,” said defender Lincoln Black.
The Colonels hovered just above .500 for most of the season before hitting a slump and losing their last five regular season games. They will however look to build some momentum after winning the sixth district championship over Webster County in a hard-fought battle last Tuesday.
In the game, the Cols held a 2-0 lead for most of the game on goals from Alex Bowley and Camden Shoemaker. Miles Pryor also had an assist.
HCHS looked to be headed to a shutout victory in the title game before disaster nearly struck. The Trojans scored two goals in the last seven minutes of the game, including the equalizer with about two minutes left. Fortune favored the Cols though, as Bowley was able to connect on a penalty kick with less than a minute to go to lift Henderson to the district championship.
Bowley, Shoemaker, Pryor and Gaige Leslie were named to the All-District team.
With the win, the Cols moved to 8-10-0 on the year, with a 6-1-0 region record. Their only regional loss came to University Heights on the road, near the end of September. HCHS has scored 43 goals and allowed 39 on for the season. They are led by Bowley with 22 goals and five assists, and Pryor who has collected five goals and eight assists.
“We’re still working on a few things, but we feel like we’re going around a turn that is good to go around right about this time of year,” said the midfielder Pryor. “We just got to know who we are. We can’t get away from who we know we are. We play harder than every team. We want it more, for sure.”
HCHS begins their title defense on Tuesday, October 14th against Lyon County at 5:45 P.M. in what figures to be an easier opening matchup. The fifth district Lyons own a 2-17-0 record. They have scored just 24 goals while allowing 122 overall. The Cols own a nine to one advantage over the Lyons historically, having not lost to them since 2004. Lyon County is led by two seniors. Joao Colares de Menezes has collected six goals, while Kamden Garrie has five goals and four assists.
Awaiting Henderson in the second round is either Hopkinsville (11-6-1), who won the eighth district by beating University Heights or Hopkins County Central (10-7-0), who lost to Madisonville-North Hopkins in the seventh district championship. The Cols defeated Hopkinsville, 5-2, earlier in the season, but have not faced Hopkins County Central.
The other half of the bracket pits Webster County (10-7-0) versus Madisonville (6-10-1), both of whom HCHS has defeated this year, and Trigg County (8-6-0) versus UHA (15-6-0). The Cols have not played Trigg County, but lost to UHA. Since their 3-1 win over HCHS, however, UHA has lost a key player to a season-ending leg injury in senior Lincoln Hauret and failed to win their district championship.
So, the second region title and a trip to the state tournament is up for grabs. Any one of a number of teams could win it on a given night. The Henderson County Colonels hope that it will be them. Head Coach Benson Pryor shared his keys to success for the Cols.
“We just got to buy in and stop giving up easy goals and start scoring some more goals,” Coach Pryor said. “If we could do those three things, I think we’ll be highly successful in the region and put ourselves, I think, in a spot to maybe shock some teams and win some games in state if we can get to that.”
