Sir!

delete... see below.

Congrats to the award winners. I think Jeremy Robertson would have been a good pick for private school coach of the year bringing the first state championship to NKY.

Keep voting. We can get it to #1.

NSCAA National Top 25 has St Ignatius (Cleveland) #2 and Mason #12. No other OH or KY schools, but CCH with an also got votes. Maher Ohio Rankings has St. Ignatius #1, Mason #2, Summit Country Day #7 and Elder #12. Mason and St Ignatius are in the Ohio Division I semi-finals tonight and play each other this weekend in finals if they both win. CCH finished #1 in KY Maher Rank and won state finals. Top Drawer Soccer National Fab 50 for fall HS has St Ignatius #2, Mason #4, Elder #27, CCH #28, and Trinity #29. CCH had an amazing season. Whatever various rankings or assessments have to say about it there is no doubt in my mind that CCH was the best team in KY this year and could likely give any HS team in the nation a very good game.

Congrats to Sacred Heart. Great job Coach Puntillo.

Great job CovCath. I was serving food in a church kitchen tonight and managed to stay in the dark until I could get home to watch the whole game on KHSAA tv. Well worth the wait. Henry Clay looked like the better team for the first 10 minutes and after that CovCath took control. Ben Darpel is an absolute stud and Griffin Lamb connected with team mates in the game that mattered most. Sam Romes was the better keeper in the game. As fun as Collin Rose was to watch, Day and Wessels (and the collective CCH backline) did not allow Henry Clay to penetrate for 80 minutes. When Chris Hunt or Aime Mabika came forward they hit the brick wall that is the CCH defense. Well done Colonels. Well deserved. Awesome job bringing the first state championship back to NKY.

"You've got your wouldas, couldas, and shouldas, and most of your shouldas are bull-shouldas." - attributed to Ditka

Maher is predictive, not determinative. The KHSAA trophy is the final word on who is #1 in the state at the end of the year. It is a simple algorithim... read the engraving on the trophy.

For CCH, neither team would concede, but there would be a "should have been score" for each. For HHS, if they played early in the season they'd both lose. For NCC, the outcome would be uncertain, but they'd both be able to run a 10K afterwards. But seriously, some up, some down... all lots of fun to watch.

Lyles (a Sr.) was in the mix with a very good group of forwards. Randle (a Jr.) missed a number of games with injury and the NCC schedule may not have exposed him to enough coaches - he'll anchor the NCC defense again next year. Joel Grosser (a Jr.) started JV and backed up Anderson in goal most of the year, as well as getting time in the field. This was Joel's first year playing goal for NCC and from what I've seen he's doing a nice job. I think he's the presumptive starter for next fall and should keep developing nicely (there is some track record of pretty good Grosser keepers, but Joel is his own man). And yes. Your coach has to nominate you.

Fern Creek was simply outmatched. They had several nice players -- Teasley would be an asset to any team, I would think - but the drop off top to bottom on Fern Creek was huge. They played several sophomores and a freshman (#3) who was simply playing way over his weight class. CCH defense was outstanding again, making Hilliard for the most part look just average. I thought it was a big improvement to have Day (and Wessels less frequently) play balls forward and follow with vertical runs to receive the ball back on quick lay-offs (on the times it was released). That is the type if quick movement and exchanges that I would think is required to break down Henry Clay. There was success against Fern Creek with balls being played to forwards who hung on to it and beat defenders on the dribble. I don't see that working so much against Henry Clay. Probably a case of you take what's given to get you into the back of the net on a particular night and move on.

Both back lines were very good. Bowling Green did a good job handling Henry Clay forwards (rotated between #9 Burton, #12 Combs and #13 Whitehouse). BG's #22 Spader was particularly strong and a number of times looked like he could have kept going forward after winning the ball. It looked like Henry Clay was playing 4-4-2 most of the game. BG was either in 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 (which was probably just their 4-3-3 with the wings spending more time defending). Collin Rose was dominant in midfield and just seemed quicker than BG could handle... at least for a good chunk of the first half. I love how quickly he faces up when he gets in the ball to have the most options going forward. If Henry Clay has a weakness at all it is probably depth. Sophomores Colby Rose (CM) and Ethan MacGillivray (RM) are both nice players and technically very good, but had a harder time when BG got more physical. Wisely, I think, MacGillivray only saw limited time in the second half. Chris Hunt I think played left back for Henry Clay the entire game but he got forward quite as bit into the attack and created some problems for BG (except when Spader stepped up and stuffed him). Henry Clay has a very good defense. It would be hard to dispute that two of the best defenses (and probably 1&2, or 2&1, will be playing Saturday. Mabika comes forward on set pieces and corners. One of my favorite moments in the game was in the second half when he was setting up for one to be played into the box and put his hand up to signal "here I am, play me" -- he is impossible to miss and is the target on most of those pieces. Saturday should be a great game. Hopefully NKY can bring home a state title. Go Colonels.

Collin Rose was the Henry Clay scorer. Both he and his team mates after 5he game said he more often puts that ball high or wide. This one may well have been headed left of goal when it deflected back to the right to beat Hughes.

Final 1-0 H-C.

HC misses on a header at the other end.

14 to go.. still 1-0. Smaljovic misses just over bar on a header.

If BG is in a 4-3-3 they're having to drop the wings back in to defend quite a bit. Later in the half the wing Anzaruni was on was staying a little further up the pitch which helped lead to probably BG's best chance of the half (other than the one that was offside) when he got in the backside for a 6 yard finish that was pretty direct on HC'S keeper Gregory.

1-0 at halftime and this is a great game so far. HC is very technical and quick through the midfield with Collin Rose dominating in the middle... he is so quick on the ball. Watching Mabika play is also a treat. He looks composed every time he's on the ball and with his size he's always shielding when the ball is on his foot, but man he's got some very nice technical skill as well.

HC has looked the better team first half though BG has had at least 2 very dangerous looks... add one more nice BG shot saved by HC keeper in last 10 seconds of first half.

HC up 1-0 on goal off a corner by Collin Rose with less than 5 left in the half.

Not so much this game, CCH defense more than he can handle. But you can tell where all the balls he gets during 5he season cone from. Jacob Teasley is a very nice player.

Henry Clay 2015 regular season to date stats leaders (goals/assists): Nick Whitehouse (17/7) Aime Mabika (12/4) Collin Rose (9/11) Braxton Burton (9/0) Chris Hunt (8/0) Josh Strange (7/8) Caleb Combs (7/0) Ethan Macgillivray (3/9)

Who you play is only partly a choice. First, Fern Creek has to play a certain amount of games in Region. They've won Region 6 for the past 4 years. No choice but to play 5 games against Region 6 teams in Districts and Regionals. Add 3 regular season District games and a half-dozen non-District Region games and over half their games are in Region 6 with an overall Maher Rating of -1.54. Fern Creek played 9 games outside of Region 6 this year in the regular season. They were all in Region 7 or 8 and all in the greater Louisville area. It's possible that Fern Creek has budget or policy limitations on travel or that they just can't get the better teams in Lexington or NKY to schedule them. Fern Creek doesn't regularly have some of the top Louisville teams -- Trinity, St. X or KCD -- on their schedule. They did play four pretty decent non-Region area schools in 2015 (North Oldham, Ballard, DuPont Manual and Oldham County). Two years ago Fern Creek had a KY schedule that was nearly as difficult as CovCath's KY schedule (OAS of 5.15 compared to 6.59 for CCH) so I'm not sure that they play a weak schedule "year in, year out." Following the Regional title game this year their coach said he wasn't sure they'd make it that far. They graduated 18 seniors from last year's team. Now here they are in the state quarterfinals. CCH must be a 3-4 goal favorite -- no doubt the toughest challenge Fern Creek has faced this year. Whatever the outcome it should be fun to watch.

Wrong thread again.

What will be interesting is if HC finds themselves down in the second half against BG at which point you may see all 6'5" of Mabika pushed up top to get on the end of a more direct attack. I think that scenario has unfolded at least once this season... not that it changed the outcome in that case, but it is an interesting option. Anyone seen Mabika at striker?