The Daviess County boys’ soccer team is headed to their sixth consecutive state tournament quarterfinal. The Panthers used an all-around effort and a pair of highlight-reel goals to knock out South Warren 4-1 in the first round Monday night at Panther Field.
DC was aggressive from the opening kick, threatening to take an early lead with a constant attack.
However, it was South Warren that struck first. A quick push upfield gave the Spartans a corner kick, and Kiram Mujic put the pass away for a 1-0 lead in the 13th minute.
The equalizer came in the 21st minute from Nick Vincent. South Warren couldn’t clear a DC attack, and Vincent rifled in a shot from the top of the box.
With two minutes until halftime, the go-ahead goal was set up by a corner kick. A designed play started with a touch just inside the corner and ended with an arcing pass that slipped through the defense before it was headed in by Dax Sandifer.
“We had a game plan coming in,” DC head coach Doug Sandifer said. “I thought offensively the boys executed the game plan. We wanted to make South Warren run. We were running a couple of different shifts of forwards to try to tire their backs out and I thought we got looks from doing that, got opportunities. Defensively, we held them to one goal. We’ve got to shore up some things defensively before the next game, but overall we played well defensively.”
The third goal was perhaps the most impressive. South Warren played a slow-rolling ball back to their keeper, who was forced to come to the top of the box. The Panthers’ Ahmed Abdullahi sprinted ahead.
The keeper and Abudllahi both struck the ball, popping it straight up. Abudllahi then used a wild roundhouse-style kick, catching just enough of the ball to send a rainbow shot over the keeper and into the goal.
“That’s just an effort play,” Sandifer said. “He didn’t give up on the ball. There was maybe a little miscommunication between their centerback and the goalkeeper. Oftentimes you’ll see forwards give up on that, and he kept fighting. Kind of a crazy finish, but it all counts the same.”
South Warren’s Mujic got a second yellow card in the 53rd minute, meaning the Spartans were left playing with 10 guys the rest of the way.
Tanner Andersen put the game out of reach when he took a pass and beat the lone defender for an easy goal with just under 12 minutes to play.
“I’m just really happy with the overall performance,” Sandifer said. “I thought the boys came out, played composed and hard. Maybe the early goal from South Warren in their first real attack helped settle us in a little bit. But we didn’t hang our heads and we fought back. Got a couple of goals there in the first half. The third goal was huge to get kind of a cushion.”
DC now advances to the state tournament quarterfinals, though who they play and win won’t be known until at least Tuesday night. The Panthers will play the winner of Tuesday night’s match between DuPont Manual and North Oldham.
If North Oldham wins, they would host the Panthers. If DuPont Manual wins, Daviess County would host the next game. The match could be played anytime between Thursday and Saturday.
