It was an unceremonious end for the E-Gals last night, falling to Meade County 5-0 in the soccer regional semi-finals. Viewed as favorites by some, Apollo came out flat, fell behind early, and never truly recovered.
“I think we were nervous for the most part,” Apollo head coach Zack Akin said. “Meade County is a good team and made things difficult for us. When you get into this environment you have to show up every time. Unfortunately for us, I think we were a little bit lethargic early on and it kind of hurt us… I’m proud of the girl’s effort not only tonight but all season long.”
The E-Gals focused their gameplan around wanting to press Meade County, play forward, and attack quickly. Having learned from their regular season matchup, the Lady Wave locked down several of Apollo’s key players, disrupting Apollo’s plans.
With a relatively young roster, Akin acknowledged the amount of experience his team was able to soak up this year, which will pay dividends for them moving forward.
“For us it’s awesome being able to get to this point and get to this moment and succeed and achieve what we have done this year so far,” Akin said. “With the young group that we have, I am hoping they can take this and build on it for future years.”
Panthers returning to Regional Championship
It took the Lady Panthers only 32 seconds to score against Ohio County, doubling their lead less than ten minutes later. Daviess County left no question in who the better team was, dominating possession and peppering the opposing goalie with shot after shot – cruising to a 6-0 victory and securing them a spot in the regional championship.
“I think we came out strong tonight despite the weather,” Mary Evelyn Wiman said. “It was cold and rainy at first, but I think once we got warmed up and got our wheels moving, we combined pretty well. Something we can work on is finishing opportunities.”
They entered halftime leading 3-0, but knew the game could have already been put out of reach – leaving a plethora of goals out on the pitch.
“At halftime, we talked about what we could do better, and we capitalized on those problems that we can solve.”
Those problems? Finishing.
Daviess County doubled their lead in the second half, with all three goals coming in an 18-minute span. Molly Fuqua and Wiman each scored twice, while Kate McCain and Bailey Brown rounded out the team’s scoring.
Now only Meade County stands in the way of a second straight regional championship, with the two teams squaring off Thursday at 6 pm.
“Meade looked like a very determined team tonight against Apollo,” Brown said. “We will have to watch out for that when we play them.”
