Owensboro Catholic clashed with Owensboro at Shifley Park Tuesday night in a first-round district battle as the Lady Aces triumphed in convincing fashion by a final score of 2-0 to keep their season alive and advance to another 3rd Region tournament appearance.
For the Lady Aces, Maddie Hayden opened the scoring with a perfectly placed left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the Owensboro net to give Catholic a quick 1-0 advantage.
The goal from the sophomore midfielder helped the Lady Aces to a quick start, as just three minutes had passed in the first half when the ball rolled past the diving goalkeeper.
Owensboro managed to keep the game competitive for the rest of the first half, playing tough defense and benefiting from several big saves by sophomore goalkeeper Chandler Worth. The effort for the Lady Devils’ defense was a vast improvement from the 10-1 thrashing the Lady Aces incurred in the reverse fixture just eight days prior.
After the game, Owensboro head coach Michael Lovett was proud of the showing from his team.
“We knew a week ago when we played them that we’d be matching up with them again tonight,” Lovett said. “Last week we didn’t want to tip our hand, and we knew that tonight we’d have a different formation with different personnel in this game. The true OHS is who you saw tonight. I’m so proud of the way these girls have come together to put up a fight and commit to not getting their butts kicked anymore.”
In the second half, Catholic had several more chances to score an important second goal. Perhaps no chance was more apparent than a laser effort from the right foot of Ashton Logsdon, which clanked off the crossbar at the 35-minute mark. The shot bounced off the bar and was quickly cleared away by the Owensboro defense to maintain the 1-0 scoreline.
Unfortunately for Lady Devils’ fans, Owensboro Catholic managed to find back net once again, this time with 30 minutes to play in the game when Katie Riney finally broke through to give the Lady Aces a two-goal margin after she was on the receiving end of a solid cross by Ella Claire Goetz near the top of the box. Riney wasted no time slotting home into the bottom right-hand corner of the Owensboro goal to give the Lady Aces a comfortable lead.
From that point on there was no looking back for Catholic, with exactly the kind of emphatic finish head coach Andy Hines had hoped his team would achieve to put the game away. Though no more goals were scored, the Catholic defense never looked in danger of being compromised, cruising to victory in the final minutes.
After the game, Owensboro Catholic coach Andy Hines was complimentary of his opponent in a hard-fought battle.
“Owensboro put their better players in the back and packed it in all night,” Hines said. “They did a pretty good job of that, and we struggled to put away our chances in the game. It’s been the same story all year, creating great chances and failing to put them away. We are going to work hard to change that on Thursday.”
The standout performance of the night belonged to Chandler Worth, as the sophomore goalkeeper managed 20 saves for the Lady Devils in the game.
For the Lady Devils, a loss marked the end of their pandemic-shortened campaign. On the other hand, the Lady Aces will look to rest up as much as they can ahead of the upcoming district final matchup with Daviess County on Thursday.
The game is set for 5:30 p.m. at Shifley Park.
