Kicking off the season in a pair of city-county games, both Owensboro and Daviess County came out on top.
Owensboro 5, Apollo 0
Hosting Apollo to start the season, Owensboro’s Peter Mbayo scored twice and added an assist in the Red Devils 5-0 shutout win. According to Owensboro head coach Ryan Haley, Apollo overwhelmed his team in the first due to having an extra midfielder in their formation. Playing on the back foot, Owensboro was able to take a 2-0 lead into half, before changing their formation and recovering.
Jackson Sigler, Noah Knoop, and Denis Juma all added goals, while Sigler, Brian Payne, and Dax Garrison all had assists.
Haley credited his team’s success to Brian Payne, Kennedy Payne, Miles Morrison, and Patrick Alexander, calling them the spine of the team’s defense and midfield.
Daviess County 4, Owensboro Catholic 1
Playing in their first district game of the season, Graham Robinson scored twice and Jake Johnson added a pair of assists to power the Panthers to a 4-1 win over Owensboro Catholic. Saw Mu scored in the sixth minute off an assist from Johnson to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Taylor Hoak added a goal in the 29th minute, before Robinson scored in the 33rd and 40th minutes thanks to assists from Johnson and Gabe Sandifur. Goalie Cooper Payne added one save.
“I thought we moved the ball much better tonight and found spaces and gaps to play in and out of,” Daviess County head coach Dale Armistead said. “We still need to do a better job of framing the goal and finishing. Catholic did a great job of countering off our turnovers and created some really good scoring opportunities. We definitely have some things to work on.”
For the Aces, Landon Danner had the team’s lone goal, off an assist from Luke Pfeifer, while Max Dawson had four saves in goal and Jace Obermeier had one.
“I was disappointed in some of the goals we conceded tonight,” Owensboro Catholic head coach Andy Donohoe said. “They were very poor from our standpoint. We had a number of good chances, particularly in the first half and the work rate was great from the boys. It needs to be more efficient, particularly in possession. We will take the lessons from the game and move forward.”
