Apollo High School hosted the first annual all-star soccer game between Region 3 and Region 2. The match ended 6-3 with Region 2 taking the victory.
Region three’s captain was Daviess County’s Sam Glover, and was coached by Apollo head coach Nikos Agisilaou and DCHS head coach Doug Sandifer. Region two’s captain was Madisonville’s Sam Dodds, and was coached by Hopkinsville head coach Aaron Hutchinson and Henderson’s Benson Pryor. The teams were selected through a ranking system put together by Agisilaou that saw the players with the most votes selected to the team.
The goals for region three were scored by Owensboro Catholic’s Brody Martin, Daviess County’s Cameron Bell and Muhlenberg’s Hayden Ashby.
The match was light-hearted and for fun, but still competitive as both teams played hard and physically. Spectators and players alike enjoyed the nice weather, jokes from the announcer and an appearance by J’s Good Grub Food Truck.
Agisilaou played a crucial role in putting together the event. Even as a player in high school Agisilaou liked the idea of having an all-star match. What put fuel to the fire was the all-star games held between regions 6 and 7, he said.
“I kind of had the idea, even when I played in high school, of why the region teams don’t actually play in a game,” he said. “This is my first year as a head coach, and I’ve always kind of thought about it, so I asked the coaches around here what they thought about it. I asked Chris Mattingly in Louisville about his thoughts on it because they do it with regions six and seven. I said let’s do it here at Apollo. For the first event I thought it was a success for sure. I’m glad we ended up doing it, and the coaches here helped out. I did a lot of the work, but they did some leg work that goes unnoticed. I’m happy we could make it happen.”
After a season of hard work, the game served as a final and well deserved reward for the players, he said. Despite the difficulty in putting it together, Agisilaou said he is hopeful of making it an annual event for the players and spectators alike.
“I think it was needed and well deserved for everybody,” he said. “I’m glad that people helped out. Like my brother, he helped me do some things even though he didn’t coach. For the most part, we’d like to keep doing this. I don’t know if it’ll always be here. It was a lot of work, more than I thought it was going to be originally, but we can get it done. It’s all for the kids.”
