While we are in the middle of a great Monon Athletic Conference football season with the conference title still on the line, we are going to take this column to talk about another fall sport — soccer.
And while the end of the season is still a ways off, it has already been a great soccer season for the three Montgomery County high schools.
A few highlights so far:
Crawfordsville girls defended their Monon Athletic Conference title and went undefeated in the league for the second straight season to claim the title. They are 13-0 in the first two seasons in the MAC.
Crawfordsville boys shared the conference title with Greencastle with a 6-1 mark to become co-champions. They are 12-2 in the first two seasons in the MAC.
Crawfordsville boys’ team ended with a 13-3 record which tied them with the 2021 team with 13 wins and the most in a single season since it won 14 games in 2010. The most wins in a season is 16 set in 2016.
North Montgomery girls’ soccer team put up 10 wins for the second year in a row to tie the school record for wins in a season and Coach Julie Hodges now stands with 122 career wins in 21 seasons.
And like I said the season is not yet over. There are a handful of games remaining and then the sectionals begin. We could have any number of teams to advance out of the sectional.
To dig a little deeper into the action this season, the girls’ side has been amazing. As of this writing North girls were 10-5-1, Crawfordsville stood at 10-4-1 and Southmont was at 6-6-1.
If you love soccer these three teams have given you plenty to watch. North Montgomery lost both of its county matches in shootouts. That made the County championship come down to the CHS vs South match and the Athenians scored first and led 1-0 for a long time. Then midway through the second half Southmont scored twice in about two minutes to stretch to a 2-1 lead, only to see Crawfordsville come back and score two final goals, the last one with about six minutes to play, to win the match 3-2. Two shootouts and a 3-2 score. You can’t get much closer than that.
And this is not just a one year thing. The three girls’ teams combined for 32 wins last year. The trio have 26 right now so they might be hard pressed to break last year’s mark, which I believe set the record for the best combined record ever for the three schools.
Looking back to 2020, Southmont has put together the best record going 55-40-5, while CHS has gone 46-60-5 and North has gone 45-64-4. All three schools have had four-year runs of winning 35 or more games with CHS leading the way with 40 wins in the last four years (and still counting).
On the boys’ side, Crawfordsville has dominated that same seven-year stretch. The Athenians have gone 74-44-4, while North has a 25-72-4 record and South is at 25-82-3.
The Athenians had five seasons of 11 or more wins during that stretch and have finished first or second in the conference five times.
There is still a lot of great soccer to be played. All six of these teams are fun to watch and if you get a chance, get out and see them. You won’t be disappointed.
Barry Lewis has been a player, coach, sports editor or broadcaster for more than 50 years and tries to keep the history of Montgomery County Sports alive though this column and on the Montgomery County Sports & More Facebook page.
