mexitucky

Possibly in a lower scoring game but giving up 42pts is giving up 42pts. Plus I heard the Jags had over 150 yards in penalties. This is a great win for the young Jags who have a very tough schedule to start the year. Nice job Jags!

No, in an 8 pt win Kyle Kelly makes a difference. That is the starting OLB and running back.

Keep it up Birds. Put that shine back on the legacy.

As we sit, Highlands has outscored its 5 opponents 17-1.

Leading scorers are: Max Farris (4 goals and 3 assists for 11pts); Porter Hedenberg (3/2 for 8pts); Cary Gorrigan (2/1 for 5pts); Caymon Stevie (2/1 for 5pts); Carter Holmes (1/2 for 4 pts); Mike Penrod (1/1 for 3pts); Elijah Stevie (1/1) for 3 pts; Luke Schweitzer (1 goal for 2pts); Alex Ford (1 goal for 2 pts); Adrian Mills (1 goal for 2 pts); Brayden Gillman (1 assist for 1 pt); Nick Fischer (1 assist for 1 pt); Ford Orem (1 assist for 1 pt).

Nice and spread out.

This game started pretty crazy. I don't think that Highlands saw the ball after kickoff for about 2 minutes at a time for the first 5 minutes. The Birds got a chance to break about 8 minutes in. Penrod took possession in midfield, dribbled to his right and fed an angled ball into the feet of Caymon Stevie who shot quickly from the top corner of the 18 to open the scoring. Oldham controlled the ball for a little longer as Highlands sat deep. A quick outlet to Porter Hedenberg led to a nice win in a one-on-one down the sideline. He crossed to the far post and Stevie reached his long leg around the defender to poke it home to put the Birds up 2-0. Same dance different song and again Porter found the ball off of a long angled pass from Carter Holmes. Porter curved in a blast from about 20 yards out to the far post to put the Birds up 3-Nil 15 minutes into the game. OC came right back w/ a long ball to #9 who scored to make it 3-1. 3 minutes later, the Birds stormed ahead again. This time Jackson Lehrter crossed to Demetri Sarakatsannis who got the ball to Max Farris for the Sophomore's 4th goal of the season. Literally 3 more minutes later Cary Gorrigan scored on a breakaway. 5-1 was the score at the half. Porter added his 3rd in two games in the 2nd half to round out the scoring.

I will have a write up in the morning. Just to paraphrase, the first 20 minutes saw OC with about 65% possession and Highlands 3 goals. They were clinical on the counter. Lead blew up to 5-1 at half, and the Birds added one more in the 2nd

Tonight the #8 Birds host #10 Oldham County at 8pm in Ft. Thomas. Last year the Birds beat Oldham on their beautiful grass field (no sarcasm, it is an awesome surface). Tonight the Birds host them on the turf. The first 10 minutes for teams that train on different surfaces is always touch and go. After that, they seem to get the hang of the pace of the ball (unless you play at St. Henry and then there is no pace, just run to the ball in the rough).

This is Highlands first game of a tough two game stretch that sees them play Trinity on Saturday. The real Highlands is being asked to stand up. I think that the fans will like what where the team is after this one.

I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Highlands was a deep team, but without that All State caliber attacker. Welp, he's back and working his way into full match fitness. Porter just looks different than other players when he dribbles at defenders. He's going to expand the dynamic.

Coach Niedert has this group that every player is basically on the same level, but all bring something different. They have a possession group, a stretch the backline group, and a deadball winners group. With his and his staff's ability to find line-ups, they have a chance to really cause other coaches headaches preparing for them. They haven't even messed with a different formation yet. Thursday and Saturday will tell us a ton of what this team can really be.

Cooper was down 2 starters. Their GK and Studer up top. They looked like they physically outplayed Highlands the first half and knocked them off their game. Highlands did good in the second half to spread the ball out and create chances up top. Definitely a tale of 2 halves.

Cooper came out very energetic. I appreciate Nico’s game and having Grant as the workhorse holding mid gives them a good tandem to link play from. Highlands played the whole roster in the first half. Every player. To me, that speaks volumes to the depth they have. There was very little drop off. That depth paid off as Highlands kept up the pressure in the 2nd and Cooper wore down a little, just enough.

Cooper was game tonight for sure. Great effort from them. Their physicality messed w the Birds flow for the first 20 minutes or so. I liked what they gave.

With his first touch of the year, Porter Hedenberg volleyed Max Farris looping cross in to give the Birds a 1 to 0 lead about 20 minutes into the game.

Carrie Gorrigan outmuscled two Cooper defenders with about 10 minutes to go in the second (the 81st minute if you will) to extend the lead to 2 to nil, assist Carter Holmes.

Pretty physical game. Holmes is lucky his ACL is intact. No problem yellow carding players for dissent, but I would really like to see them given for bad slide tackles. If you want to lay the marker down that your word is law early, great. Dissent shouldn’t be accepted. However, you better govern all of the game then and make sure that you protect the players as much as you protect your ego. Bad tackles end high school careers

This is what I was expecting. I thought Lickert was just a coach looking for a group of kids to buy in. Looks like he may have found it in NewCath. I expected it to be Campbell County, but I don't know if the coach exists that can wake the sleeping giant.

If Mike can’t do it, it can’t be done.

Highlands concludes a successful weekend in Lexington with a 2 to 0 victory over Henry Clay. Elijah Stevie assisted Luke Schweitzer who took a nice first time shot to start the second half. 30 minutes later, Stevie scored his first Varsity goal on a play that started with Caymon Stevie dropping a pass to Max Farris for a 10 yard shot that the goalie saved. Elijah Stevie was first to the rebound and buried it. Devin Harris, Drew Cavicini, Garrett Crowe, Alex Foubert, and Ford Orem were stalwarts in front of Nick Fischer in goal. 0 goals in 160 minutes against two good offenses.

They have home run hitters, they have a work horse. They cleaned up the tackling from last week. I think that they are a good dark horse for AA. Only thing keeping them from being legitimate is depth right now.

Congrats Mr Woolf on your first Varsity win!

This topic began because CCH folks said they’d have beaten Trinity last year and even had at least one comment where someone said CCH looks better than Trinity this year.

 

I’m not from Louisville. I’ve visited Louisville less than 10 times in my entire life. I’ll never believe the best team in NKY can defeat Trinity. I’ll pick Trinity to win every time.

 

The best team in NKY could defeat St. X and Male every now and then but St. X and Male would likely win those games more than losing them.

 

More often than not CAL and DeSales will defeat most of the teams in NKY regardless of class.

 

As for the rest of the Louisville teams there are plenty that would lose regularly to the best NKY has to offer.

 

I do find it ironic that everytime an NKY team/program of any classification has some success they think they can beat the best Louisville has to offer. That simply isn’t true. Highlands could never beat Trinity when they scrimmaged and while folks say they could beat a GCL team it seems that NKY took more losses against those GCL teams than Trinity.

 

Just calling it like I see it.

Beechwood fans claimed that in fairness. I didn’t see CovCath fans chiming in.

Game ends 0 to 0. Dunbar had the better of the 1st half, but Highlands depth wore them down in the 2nd. Highlands missed 3 or 4 very good scoring opportunities. Max Farris is starting to come into his own.

I just looked over this list. How as Brandon Berger from Beechwood not a finalist in '92? He was a one man wrecking machine.

For what it's worth, my friend w/ the film agreed w/ you. Ha ha. Gotta love eye witness accounts.

I messaged the guy who filmed the game. Hopefully he will be able to get us a cut up of the play.

Full disclosure, the player that got fouled is my son, so I'm presenting this as objectively as anyone can since I'm taking the opposite side of the ref on this one.

The Lexington Soccer Showcase is being held this weekend. Tonight #5 Dunbar host #18 Highlands at 6pm.

PLD is very good to awesome every year. I know very little about them other than that. I am excited for Highlands. Great learning opportunity to get a true perspective of where their new midfield is at this early in the season.

8 goals in two games is impressive. How is Russell making it happen?

The preps crew at the Enquirer picked Scott in this one. I'm feeling like New Cath is going to take this one though, personally. I think it'll be close either way.

#18 for NewCath will cause issues on the outside for Scott. He is dynamite. I'm telling you that.

I don't know exactly how good CCH is this year. I'm never going to vote against my own team. I expect us to rebound and be much more competitive. CCH will probably the second best team we see all year.

Tough to say. Casey McGuiness didn't play against NewCath. They really didn't get to run that many plays due to great field position or quick strikes. What they did run was mostly passing and very vanilla. I don't know how anyone watches the scrimmage and feels like they've seen what CovCath truly has.

Defensively, their biggest hole was filled by Mayer. He'll be a very capable replacement for Butler. The d-line is smallish weight wise, but extremely quick and looked to go about 8 deep. Again, don't know if that is going to be how they rotate in the regular season.

I guess I still don’t see it as harsh based on the description. You’re putting a lot of what ifs on a play where to all descriptions it sounds like he was on goal and if not for the foul has a real chance. And if it’s the kid I’m thinking of he’s a pretty real threat.

 

Red cards are unfortunate and the goal scoring opportunity ones always feel all the more so because just a few minor details being changed and the foul could be nothing more than a foul. But that’s the game.

I'm not describing this well. In my mind, a straight red in situations similar to this is where a player is at full momentum towards the goal and is brought down on the way to goal. You don't see it often where a player is fouled in the midst of changing direction after stopping his movement towards goal and another defender has entered the play.

Is the Holy Cross player able to appeal the suspension that follows?

So it wasn’t really that harsh? I guess what I’m getting at is was there anyone going to stop him from shooting or anything if not for the foul? Was he in a position where he got would not have been a likely scoring opportunity? If no I’m not sure what can be argued to say it was incorrect.

 

I think it’s always easier for the ref to give a yellow because people feel less upset by it, but it doesn’t make it right.

 

Is there video? I’d be curious in seeing it. The World Cup has me all kinds of confused on the consistency between various leagues.

Basically, you need to understand the sequence. Caymon was away at goal and saw the defender coming in with a potential angle coming off of his right shoulder w/ momentum. He slowed down at the top of the 18 and tried to cut in to his right after the defender's momentum carried him past Caymon. Caymon beat him and was fouled. However, his move was lateral and there was another defender about 2 yards to his right. He would have gotten a shot off, but just as easily, had he taken another touch, the defender would have been there to create interference.