With the final score reading 2-2, neither side could claim the win, but both teams looked for small victories.

The coaches for both No. 15 East Jessamine and No. 17 Lexington Catholic found them on Thursday night.

For the Jaguars, it was overcoming a 2-0 deficit at the half and tying it up.

"Our second half was much stronger," East assistant coach Trey Kramer said. He filled in for head coach Tom Morgan, who was forced to sit out because of a red card in the Jags' previous game against Henry Clay. "We came out so flat in the first half."

Catholic Coach Greg Hilvers found some good in the Knights' ability to stay with a more experienced team.

"They've got experience on us," Hilvers said. "It's not any fluke that they're ranked that high. They've earned every bit of it. They gave us what for on our home field."

It was the Knights passing out the "what for" early on.

They took a seemingly comfortable 2-0 lead into the half after a penalty kick early in the game by Ben Hall-Volpenhein. It came after a called push in the box. Hall-Volpenhein sat out much of the second half with an illness, his coach said.

The Catholic lead grew to 2-0 with 7:30 left in the first half when Kyle Coffman rescued a ball that was on its way out of bounds and made an acrobatic pass to the head of sophomore Ini Okpokho.

But the Jaguars weren't quite finished yet.

Six minutes into the second half, Zach Brown settled the ball and popped it into the goal past Chapin Webb.

Six minutes after that, Carter Melendez-Christensen fought through a crowd and found Cameron Miller, who raced past two defenders to pop in the tying goal.

"We needed to turn it around and we did," Kramer said. "We had good senior leadership out there."

A potential go-ahead goal for East Jessamine with 19:30 to play was negated by a dangerous play call.

The score wasn't the only tie for the two teams, who each had seven shots on goal for the match. East had one extra in the second half.

"They had us down, but I was happy with the way our guys fought and leveled it off," Hilvers said. "We had some chances there at the end. If we'd had a bit more composure, we might have finished one of those off."

Both sides agreed that the 2-2 tie on the scoreboard is indicative of how balanced their district is again this season.

"It's such a toss-up," Kramer said. "We're all fighting for the same thing and it'll be about who wants it most at the end."

Lexington Catholic 2, East Jessamine 2

Goals—LC: Ben Hall-Volpenhein, Ini Okpokho; EJ: Zach Brown, Cameron Miller.

Goalkeepers—EJ: Dale Davone; LC: Chapin Webb.

Records—Lexington Catholic 1-1-2, East Jessamine 4-1-1.