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Cardinals streak by Panthers, 2-1

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By Chase Sewell/State Journal Sports Writer
September 25, 2008

It was a track meet from start to finish Wednesday night at Sower Soccer Field. In the end, it was Scott County that crossed the finish line the most as the Cardinals beat Frankfort 2-1 in the first round of the Frankfort Invitational.

The Panthers will play Owen County tonight at 6 p.m. in the consolation game - Owen County lost 2-0 to Grant County in the opening game Wednesday. Scott County will face off against Grant County at 8 p.m. for the championship.

The speed of Scott County became apparent early on with players like Jesus Cruz and Zach Adkins streaking up field time after time, out running some of Frankfort's fastest players.

"I really and truly thought their speed was the biggest factor," FHS coach Sherrill Smith said. "We put a track star on (Cruz) and continued to watch him all night long and he made things happen for them."

Another strategy the Panthers used to slow down the Cardinals was their offsides trap. Frankfort caught Scott County offsides 10 times in the first half alone " four times in only 7 minutes.

Even with those strategies, the Cardinals struck first when Matt Hannaback centered the ball to Alex Sosa who immediately settled the ball from outside of 20 yards and fired a shot inside the far post past FHS keeper Clint Slugantz with 15:05 left in the first half.

The Panthers didn't let that stand for long. Just a minute later, Eli Purdy passed to Andrew Grider on the right side of the box who then crushed a shot into the upper corner to tie the game at one.

"Probably one of the finest scores I have ever seen in high school soccer I think came from Andrew Grider tonight," Smith said. "That was a powerful ball. Nobody could have stopped that ball. To me that was one of the prettiest shots I have seen in my 24 years of high school soccer."

Both teams had chance after chance throughout the rest of the game to break the tie. Frankfort made a few adjustments in the second half to get the ball to its playmakers up front.

"We realized that Duran Cardwell did a heck of a job crossing," Smith said. "We wanted to start him at the halfback position and that was a big change right there. He played very well against Jesus. We wanted him up at halfback to get some slotting balls into open space and I had Mark Trivette moving up to the top of the D to look for any balls that we could get in.

"Eli (Purdy) and Jake (Clark) played a real nice game in the middle controlling the situation," he said. "With Keri Metcalf and his speed and Andrew Grider we felt like things could happen."

It was Scott County that made things happen first. Cruz blazed up the middle of the field with a little over 15 minutes left to play. He broke through the Panther defense and fired a shot at Slugantz. Slugantz made a diving play to deflect the shot " one of 10 saves on the night " but Adkins was quick to gather up the rebound and put it in the net to make it 2-1.

"Overall we played a sound game," Smith said. "They were a very quick team and we respected that. I thought we made adjustments throughout the game that helped counter attack that. We were just unlucky.

"It was one of those nights where one goal here or there...they could have banged one in earlier and we could have banged one in," he said. "It was just a situation where it didn't fall (for us)."

Smith said he was very happy with his play off the bench Wednesday and he had a lot of confidence in his defense. Specifically Harold Jennings and Andrew LeMay who both played a tough game on defense cutting off many of the Scott County attacks.

"I thought overall we played about 78 minutes of soccer," Smith said. "Once we get to 80, we'll be a fine team. We're building toward that.

"I was proud that everyone that got in stood up to the challenge."

Frankfort's consolation match will feature Owen County - a team the Panthers have beaten twice this season.

"It's hard to beat somebody three times," Smith said. "Every time they are getting better and better. They played a VERY close game against Grant County. It's definitely a team that we respect. It's a tough match for us."

>The Panthers fell to the Boyle County Rebels 6-1 Tuesday night in Danville. Despite being peppered by 20 shots in the first half by the 23rd-rankedRebels, the Panthers matched Boyle's only first half goal with a 30-yard strike by Grider with eight minutes left in the half.

The second half proved to be a different matter, however, as Frankfort, whose ranks were thinned by injuries and illness, wore down and allowed another 21 shots. This time four found the back of the net.

The Rebels, now7-2-3,added one more on a penalty kick.

Slugantz, FHS' goalkeeper, had 17 saves for the night.




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