Lovett's PK lifts Lady Devils to win

Sep. 2—Both soccer games in the doubleheader at Shifley Park's Dale Poole Field came down to the wire Thursday night as district foes squared off in a pair of back-and-forth, physical matchups.

The Owensboro High School girls scored on a penalty kick in the last minute for a victory over Apollo, followed by the Eagles overcoming the Red Devils in a penalty-kick shootout to capture a boys win in the nightcap.

GIRLS OWENSBORO 1, APOLLO 0

After a stalemate through the first 79 minutes, the Lady Devils finally broke through in the final minute of regulation.

A handball in the box allowed Sydney Lovett to take a penalty kick with 28.3 seconds remaining, and her shot into the bottom right corner of the goal proved to be the ultimate difference-maker for OHS (3-4, 2-3 in 9th District).

"I'm pretty confident when she steps up," said Lady Devils coach Michael Lovett. "In all her years of playing soccer, I think she's only missed one. That's kind of a specialty of hers, so when it's called I'm always confident. I'd be surprised if she did miss. I wouldn't be disappointed, I'd just be surprised. It was called, we knew who was going to take it, I was confident it was going in."

Lovett compared the first half to the first time the two sides played, which ended with a 2-1 shootout victory for OHS on Aug. 16, but he credited his players for better effort after intermission.

"We battled for the 50-50 balls — the punts and the goal kicks," he said. "We didn't do that in the first half, we just let them take them. That's the one thing that I really addressed at halftime. I said, 'I really don't care about pretty soccer or anything like that, I need you guys to battle and to compete. If you're not going to, whoever's on the bench is going in, and I'm going to find 11 people who want to play and want to compete.'

"It motivated our starters to go out and to truly do that for one another. It was a special win because of that."

It was a disappointing loss for the E-Gals (2-7-1, 0-5), who coach Zach Akin said have struggled to put away scoring chances this fall.

"The longer a game like this goes 0-0, the more likely that something like what happened is going to happen," he said. "I think that's what it comes down to. For us, especially over the last few games, when we have chances we've got to put them away, and we didn't do it again tonight, unfortunately."

Despite the loss, however, the first-year Apollo coach has seen noticeable strides within his program.

"The girls have improved from game to game," Akin added. "I think the biggest thing for us is we're trying to improve their knowledge of the game and try to play the game the right way. ... With each game, we've seen progression in different areas, whether it's defensively or going forward or moving the ball. From my perspective and my staff's perspective, you can't ask for much more."

With the victory, OHS secured at least the No. 3 seed in the 9th District Tournament, while Apollo will be the fourth seed.

BOYS APOLLO 2, OWENSBORO 1

The Eagles came away with a 3-1 edge in the penalty-kick shootout, with Steven Teran making a trio of saves and Cesar Velazquez Gonzalez scoring to put the exclamation mark on the victory.

The win came following a scoreless second half and overtime after both teams went into intermission tied at 1-1.

"It was a tough match," said Apollo assistant coach Dakota Morgan, who was filling in for head coach Ryan Poirier. "Our boys came out to play mentally today. We've had a rough couple of weeks, but we came through today as a team and our goalie, Steven, came up with three amazing saves in the PKs and we got it done tonight."

The win snapped a four-game skid for the Eagles (3-5, 2-2 in 9th District), who evened things up on Long Berly's penalty-kick goal after a foul in the box in the 29th minute.

The Red Devils (3-3-2, 1-3) struck first when Peter Saang scored on a penalty kick of his own just seven minutes into the contest.

"I thought our guys played a good game," OHS coach Ryan Haley said. "Our boys did a good job controlling the tempo of the game for the most part, in the beginning of the game. I think we got a little fatigued and a little shallow in some spurts, but we would always gain control again.

"We, as a team, we've got to finish out chances and we had 26 shots to their 13. Sometimes that's just the way it rolls. It seems to be a familiar thing, but what we're going to do is we're going to get back on the pitch Saturday and we're going to get better."

Moving forward, Haley wants to see his players use the outing as a learning experience.

"I think the big thing is you don't let teams hang around. You've got to close them out, you've got to put them away, or else things like this will happen," he said. "We're still a young team — we had three seniors in the game tonight — and I think a lot of these kids are going to take this and remember it."

With the win, Apollo slides into second in the district standings, while OHS slips into a tie for third with Owensboro Catholic.

"Tonight was super huge for us to try and get that second seed," Morgan said. "We have Catholic next week, and so it was super important for us to get back to winning ways in district."