While our attention may be on the West Coast today for a little slugfest in Seattle, we received a reminder that there are SEFC squads out there still tearing up the fields, both near and far!

We wanted to send our hearty congratulations to our favorite kids from Kentucky for a tremendous season!

For the full season report from Coach Jeff Sponel please continue below.

We just concluded the end of the season with state tournament, the Commonwealth Cup.  I thought you might be interested in a little recap of our season.

Our season saw us play in eight games and two tournaments.  We started off the season with a 0-0 tie.  Considering all the rain we had in Louisville at the beginning of the season a tie was a positive start.  Half way through our season we were 3-0-1.  I was very pleased with the Screaming Eagles efforts up to this point.  We had been very good on defense because we had not given up a goal.

At the midpoint of each season the district we are in has a tournament.  This season we entered the tournament hoping to do well.  We were still coming together and working on many things.  Our first game in the tournament, we let in a goal.  The opposing team had just one shot and we had nine.  In the second half we kept looking for an answer and finally found it.  At the end of the game, we had out shot the other team twenty-five to two but could only muster a 1-1 tie.

The second game was against South Nelson, the team that won the tournament and they beat us five to nothing.  We had one last game in this tournament and we won it five to nothing.  We finished the District Three Tournament in second place (1-1-1).

We went on to finish the regular season with a record of 6-1-1.  The only loss that we had was to South Nelson again.  We improved upon our first game with them this time only losing to them by a score of 3-1.  This would be the only game that we would be scored against in the regular season.

The Commonwealth Cup is the fall state tournament.  We were placed in group C against three teams that we knew little about.  We received a favorable draw with good times for our games, in other words we didn’t have any 8 AM or 9 AM games.  Our first game we won 4-0 and controlled the whole game.  The second game was probably the best game of the first weekend.

We gave up an easy goal about half way through the first half.  We were able to find an answer right before the end of the first half.  The game seesawed back and fourth in the second half until about ten minutes before the end of regulation we worked the ball through their defense and sent a shot past their keeper and into the back of the net.

The remaining time was spent taking everything they could throw against us and keeping them at bay.  We won the second game 2-1 and it was very entertaining.  At the end of the first day of the tournament, we had won both games and were already through to the second weekend.  We had one last game on Sunday against a team from Lexington.  We tied with them 1-1 which was enough to put us through on points and not to worry about tie breakers.

The following weekend was the semifinals and finals of the Commonwealth Cup.  Our semifinal match was against South Nelson at 9 AM.  We had the Screaming Eagles show up an hour before the game to get them ready for what we would be their biggest game of the tournament.

Nine minutes into the game our goalie cleared the ball and caught their defense flat on their feet.  One of our forwards beat the South Nelson defense and took aim on their goal.  He took a shot that cleared the out reached hands of their goalie and we had our first lead of the game.  We were able to keep that lead and go in at half time up 1-0.

The second half was a steady attach and counter attack by both teams.  About half way through the second half they had a corner kick and were able to beat our defense and our rushing keeper to even the score at 1-1.  The rest of the second half was a stalemate and ended 1-1, sending us into two ten minute halves for overtime looking for the golden goal.

The end of the game came sooner than we expected.  About three minutes had expired in the first overtime half when South Nelson had earned another corner kick.  They took the kick and the ball bounced through the box, our sweeper went to clear the ball and had it bounce off of his shin guard and into our goal.  The game was over and emotion over came the whole team.

The last game we played was to determine the third and fourth places in the tournament.  Once again we went down a goal before the end of the first half.  This time there was no answer before the end of the half.  The Screaming Eagles were still hurting from the previous game.  I reminded them at half time that they have worked too hard to let this end like this.

The Screaming Eagles came out in the second half like a new team and kept knocking on the door until finally they scored an equalizer.  Time ran out and we were forced to play in our second overtime game of the day.  This time we made it through the first overtime half still tied 1-1.

Nearly three minutes into the second overtime period, we had worked the ball down the left side and had centered it to a forward when he looked up and buried a shot into the back of the goal.  The game was over and so was our season.  We finished the season with ten wins, three losses (all to the state champions) and three ties.

Sincerely,

Jeff