Fort Thomas Matters Sports Reporter
This
matchup used to have plenty of implications for the old 19th District
Tournament.
But the
Kentucky High School Athletic Association shuffled around the districts making
them similar to the basketball districts. Thus, the Highlands Bluebirds and
Newport Central Catholic men’s soccer teams will battle each other mostly for
pride during Saturday’s regular season matchup and for Ninth Region seedings in
the District 36 championship game. District rivals Bellevue, Dayton and Newport
do not field men’s soccer squads.
Highlands
and NewCath battled Campbell County and Bishop Brossart to get to the 10th
Region tournament in the old 19th District. Highlands eliminated NewCath in
2010, 2009, 2008, 2006 and 2005 in the 19th semifinals.
Last year,
Highlands won the regular-season meeting 3-1. But NewCath won the District
Tournament and beat Covington Catholic to win the 10th Region title before
losing 1-0 at Montgomery County in the first round of the state tournament.
NewCath
eliminated Highlands, 1-0 in the 19th semifinals in 2004. Since then, it has
been all Highlands. The Bluebirds are 10-0-2 against their rivals just two
miles down the road during that time frame.
Both teams
need a win in big ways. The Bluebirds are just 1-4-2 in their last seven games
since starting the season 5-2, including big wins over Boone County and St.
Henry. The Bluebirds are 6-6-2 overall.
“The season is going well,” said Matthew Winkler, Highlands head coach. “Sure, there are games that I think we
should have won. Rebuilding each year is always a challenge and it takes time
to find the right mix for everyone. Someone that might play center-mid in club
might play defense in high school. I enjoy the group of guys that we have this
year and hope that they continue to work hard. We both have high goals for the
season and we intend to give it our best to meet these goals.”
The
Thoroughbreds come in just 2-5-4 after going 15-7-3 last year. But they’ve been
competitive in all but the Ryle contest. They’ve tied Boone County, Conner and
Cooper. They’ve been outscored just 18-14 on the year.
“We have played some of the top teams in the state to
prepare ourselves for the district and regional tournament,” said Mike McDonald, NewCath head coach. “We are a good team that learns from every
game we play. We are starting to click as a team and play together. In the
beginning of the year, all the guys were trying to be the standout.”
Highlands
has outscored opponents 32-21. They’ve had balanced scoring with Devin Dupont
and Ethan Schmits leading the way with six goals a piece. Andrew Barnes lead
the Bluebirds with five assists. Goalkeeper Nick Breslin has also emerged with
three shutouts.
The
Bluebirds are trying to find consistency. They smashed Cincinnati Anderson, 6-1
last week before dropping a 1-0 decision at Villa Madonna.
“We just need to step it up in practice,” said Alex Shepherd, Highlands junior. “We also need to continue to work hard and
talk on the field a little more. It’s about finding our game and playing like
that.”
Highlands
led Scott 1-0 a few weeks ago. But the Eagles scored twice in a few minutes late
in the game to pull out the 2-1 win. Winkler said the Bluebirds need to learn
to protect leads after that game.
“It just takes time,” Winkler said. “Some
days, it is nice that districts are still several weeks away while others, we
wish it was tomorrow. We hope that
putting together all of the trainings and game experiences, a team can find
more unity and just play a style that they get used to. If that style works, the
team will be more likely to fall back on that in difficult situations rather
than going back to a style that is not preferred.”
NewCath has
played solid defense all year. McDonald said Ben Tiereny, Jacob Hensley, Kyle
Simon, Nathan Tackett and Dan Connolly have played well back there for the
Thoroughbreds and Nathan Grosser has done well at goalkeeper.
Up front,
Matt Tolle has five goals over the last couple games for NewCath. Evan Brannon
has also helped on the offensive end
“We’re not really getting down on ourselves,” Tolle said. “We’re
still trying to find people who are trying to step up and be leaders on the
team because everyone is trying to do individual stuff. It’s happening later
than we wanted to, but we’re finally figuring out how to work as a team. We’ll
then be on the same page.”
A coach once said, “Play with emotion. But don’t get emotional.” The
team that does that will most likely win the game.
“This is our only district game, so I’m
sure the player will get caught up in the emotion of the game,” McDonald said. “My
take is business as usual. We try to play every game at a high pace, so I don’t
expect anything different in our match on Saturday. This has been a rival game
for years. Some of the guys are neighbors or cousins. It should be a fun game
to watch.”
Game time is 11 a.m. at Tower Park.
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