By Terry Boehmker
NKy Tribune sports reporter
The seniors on last year’s Covington Catholic boys’ soccer team showed what it takes to win a state championship and the players who replaced them are doing their best to mimic that success.
CovCath defeated Mercer County, 3-0, in the first round of the state playoffs on Tuesday at Dixie Heights High School with the same kind of stifling defensive play that was a key element in the previous team’s title run.
CovCath midfielder Griffin Lamb, No. 6, takes the ball up field on a breakaway during the playoff win over Mercer County. (Photo by Victor Matos)
The Colonels have allowed only one goal in their first six playoff games and they’ve posted shutouts in 10 of their last 12 matches.
“It’s always nice to get another shutout in the state tournament,” said CovCath coach Jeremy Robertson. “The key for us is playing good defense and it showed last year with the success that we had. So we’re playing some good ‘D’ and we’re still able to score some goals, which is always great.”
The Colonels advance to the state quarterfinals to face a Louisville Collegiate team that will definitely put their defense to the test. The Titans (23-1-1) have scored 157 goals in 25 games for a 6.2 average and they’ve never been shut out. On Tuesday, Collegiate blasted Louisville Butler, 5-0, in the first round of the state playoffs.
But Robertson doesn’t plan to change his team’s defensive tactics for Saturday’s quarterfinal game. He said the Colonels faced a high-scoring Louisville Trinity team in last year’s state final and came away with a 2-1 victory.
“We’re going to do the same thing with Collegiate, we’re going to take it at them,” Robertson said. “We’ll get some feedback on them from other coaches, but we’re still planning to go hard on them.”
The Colonels’ aggressive defensive strategy was so effective in Tuesday’s win over Mercer County that junior goalkeeper Thomas Cody didn’t have to make any heroic saves to post the shutout.
“Our back four have been strong all year,” Cody said. “They’ve been backing up each other and it’s been working well. We haven’t given up anything stupid yet.”
When CovCath had possession of the ball in Tuesday’s game, the players worked together just as well to create scoring opportunities. They got their first goal in the 12th minute when senior Stephen Schutt chipped shot that sailed over the goalkeeper’s head and into the net.
“I was just going for a cross and kind of mis-hit it and the ball went in,” Schutt said. “If you just get the ball going toward the goal, good things can happen.”
The score remained 1-0 until the 48th minute in the second half. That’s when CovCath senior midfielder Griffin Lamb took the ball down the right side and crossed it into the middle. The ball rolled out to CovCath forward sophomore forward Nathan Deimling on the left side of the penalty box and he ripped off a shot that gave his team a 2-0 lead.
The Colonels’ final goal came in the 74th minute. Lamb received the ball as he was cutting across the penalty box, turned toward the goal and tucked a shot inside the left post.
“I think the first half we were nonchalant a little bit, but the second half we played much better,” coach Robertson said.
“I told the guys at halftime, ‘You still have 40 minutes to play and at the end of that 40 minutes there’s only going to be eight teams left in the state tournament, so go out and put everything you have into it.’ I think they did that. It was a much better second half.”
Campbell County, the other local team that qualified for the state playoffs, lost to Louisville Dunbar, 6-0, in another first-round game played Tuesday. The Camels scored 23 goals in their previous five playoff games, but they couldn’t get the ball in the net against a Dunbar team that notched it’s 14th shutout of the season.
Campbell County was making its first appearance the state tournament after winning the 10th Region championship last week.
