Owensboro Catholic remained undefeated in district play on Tuesday, defeating the Lady Devils for the second time this year at 5-0 to earn the No. 1 seed in the district.
The Lady Aces wasted no time putting pressure on Owensboro, building a 2-0 lead going into the 20th minute. Senior Maddie Hayden was able to close out the half strong for Owensboro Catholic, getting a late goal thanks to a nice through ball from sophomore Aubrey Randolph in the 36th minute to take a 3-0 lead into halftime.
The second half was much of the same for the Lady Aces, controlling possession and grabbing a trio of goals en route to the 6-0 victory over the Lady Devils. Maddie Hayden had a hat trick on the day, while Riney followed with a brace and junior Ginny Young had one to round out the scoring.
Maddie and Ginny also had an assist each, while junior Mallary Bailey, Randolph, junior Annie Helwig and junior Elizabeth Hayden all had one as well. Meanwhile, junior Abby Payne also kept Owensboro off the board with her sixth shutout of the season.
Assistant Coach Kwame Ward was pleased with the Lady Aces ability to bounce back, coming off of a tough loss to South Oldham with a strong performance to secure the No. 1 seed in district play.
“We worked on some passing patterns, tried to get some of our younger players in that haven’t played a lot,” Ward said. “There’s just some things we need to fine tune before the district tournament.”
Owensboro Catholic had a plethora of offensive opportunities throughout the game, but Ward and Head Coach Andy Hines want to see them take more advantage of those chances as they look to finish the regular season strong.
“Finishing [is something we need to work on],” Ward said. “We create tons of opportunities, but we don’t put them away at a very efficient rate. I think we can all be more efficient. Finishing and being more efficient in front of goal is one of the things that we need to work on over the next three games and in the district tournament, getting better at that [will] hopefully propel us into the regional tournament and advance.”
All in all the Lady Aces have now secured the No. 1 spot in the district tournament, sitting 8-3 overall and 6-0 in district play. Owensboro Catholic is hoping to build on this win with a few weeks to go, also knowing that they have plenty of time to prepare for the postseason.
“I think this is our 18th district win in the last three years,” Ward said. “6-0 in district this season, so the one seed just gives us an opportunity to prepare for Apollo and know who we have coming up.”
Meanwhile, Owensboro falls to 5-7 overall and 2-4 in district play, cementing them as the third seed in the district tournament. Against Owensboro Catholic the second time around, Head Coach Michael Lovett felt like they just didn’t put in enough effort.
“We got outplayed,” Lovett said. “They’re a better team overall, but we just got outplayed in the first half for sure. Then they are just more aggressive. They want it more. They want the ball, they go for it and we are more passive. That’s something as a young team we’ve just gotta keep learning and growing as a team to build toward the future.”
Lovett was pleased with his defense however, as senior keeper Chandler Worth made a barrage of saves and the back line helped limit the Lady Aces to five goals in the match.
“I thought Chandler, Sydney, Georgia, Karleigh did awesome defensively to help shut them down [on some chances],” Lovett said. “Chandler had 27 saves tonight. Quite a few of those were point-blank and legitimate ‘hey I’ve got your back ladies’ kind of saves and that was great to see.”
With five more games left on the schedule before postseason play opens up, Lovett wants to rest up to get his team well and battle to grab some wins and become mentally and physically stronger to close out the regular season.
“I would love to get healthy again,” Lovett said. “We’ve got two starters that are done for the year, with one of them being a senior. It’s disappointing, but it is what it is… We move on and it’s next man up. We gotta maintain what we have. The last thing we want to do is cancel any more games. That was disheartening a few weeks back, but at the end of the day we’ve gotta stay healthy because we’ve got a tough district game first round against Daviess County and that’s what we want to gear the next few weeks for.”
