It was a county re-match on Tuesday as the Class 2A Sectional 25 got underway at Crawfordsville. The host Athenians took on county rival Southmont and much like the regular season where CHS handled the Mounties, this match yielded the same result with Crawfordsville taking home an 8-0 win.
At halftime the score read 3-0 and thanks to a few halftime adjustments, the host Athenians were able to pour five more goals in to cruise on to the semi-finals.
In the win Manuel Olvera, Patrick Corado, and Ryo Nishina all scored a pair of goals for CHS. Jaziel Gil-Herrera and Andrew Hurt rounded out the scoring. Gil-Herrera assisted on a pair of goals with Nishina adding an assist as well as Kevin Puerto. Goalie Alec Saidian saved three shots in the win.
“We knew tonight was going to be a tough game as that’s typically the case when you play a team for a second time,” Crawfordsville coach Marcus Hale said. “We know that we’re going to have to play well for three games in order to win. Thankfully we did what we needed to tonight.”
For the Mounties their season comes to an end with a record of 4-13 on the season. Despite the disappointing end, coach Stephanie Kennedy saw plenty of bright spots this season and began to look forward to next season.
“We doubled our win total from last season so first and foremost that’s a step in the right direction,” Kennedy said. “There were a lot of games this season that if we brought different energy were winnable games for us. We have the skill and ability but getting them to believe they can compete against good teams is where we have to get better.”
In the win for the Athenians they also broke the single season goals record for the team as they’ve now scored 78 (previous record was 76) goals on the season. With how elite the CHS offense is with players like Corado and Nishina, Hale also noted how it takes a complete team effort to break that kind of record.
“You see Patrick and Ryo be very unselfish at times because they know how many different guys can score for us,” Hale said. “Andrew Hurt scored tonight and he’s only a freshman. It’s nice to see some of those other guys share in the success because this record truly takes a complete team effort.”
The Mounties and Kennedy have plenty to look forward to for next season as a large freshman class plus graduating just two seniors in Rylan Gayler and Skyler Wood.
“Moving into next year we have a good group of freshman coming up that I think will challenge some of these guys,” Kennedy said. “They know they’ll have to step up their game because their spots won’t be guaranteed.”
Crawfordsville will now get another re-match with Danville on Wednesday as the Warriors defeated North Montgomery 5-0 in the other quarter-final matchup. CHS concluded the regular season with a 3-0 win over the Warriors last week but Hale notes how his team will have to continue to come out of the gate strong in order to advance to the sectional championship.
“Danville was missing few starters when we played them so we just have to come ready,” he said. “We’ll give our best effort for 80 minutes and see what happens.”
Western Boone and Cascade will play in the first semi-final at 5 p.m. followed by the Athenians and Warriors getting things underway at roughly 7 p.m. The two winners of those games will square off Saturday evening for the sectional championship at 6 p.m.
