A minute left. A brilliant goal. Kentucky’s No. 2 team eliminated.
Pinned in their own end for most of the game against Lexington Catholic — the three-time defending 11th Region champion and No. 2 team in the state — chances were few and far between for Henry Clay in the region semifinal Thursday night.
They made the last one count.
Kori Beaumont’s free kick from about 10 yards outside the left corner of the box found teammate Corinne Leach at the back post where she headed it down past a diving Kalee Opalka for the only score of the game. It gave the Blue Devils a 1-0 lead with 1:21 left and a shot Saturday at the 11th Region title.
“When we played Douglass in the district championship, I missed a header exactly like that off a kick exactly like that,” said Leach, a sophomore midfielder. “I was for sure not going to miss it a second time.”
The opportunity came after Beaumont won the ball in her team’s back third of the field and saw an opening to take it up the left side. A sprinting LexCath defender clattered into Beaumont trying to chase her down. It was a deep run for a center back, but not unusual for Henry Clay’s senior captain.
“When she starts dribbling, she can’t stop,” Leach joked.
The free kick service wasn’t perfect, however. Beaumont slipped to the ground as she struck it.
“When I took that kick, I was like ‘oh my gosh,’” Beaumont said. “But then Corinne — she just made it all worth it.”
Henry Clay (11-5-3) won the 42nd District title, but hasn’t had a typical season with five losses, three ties and a No. 35 ranking by MaherRankings.com. Second-year program Frederick Douglass, who lost in the other semifinal to Paul Laurence Dunbar earlier Thursday, actually took the top seed in the district.
It was the second night in a row a Henry Clay team knocked off a higher ranked 43rd District foe. The Henry Clay boys defeated Lafayette 3-0 in Wednesday’s 11th Region boys’ semifinals.
“I’ve been telling this team all year — this team’s going to do a lot greater than what they think,” Henry Clay Coach Mebit Aragaw said. “No one’s counted on us. We’ve always been the underdog all year. That’s the best part. Watching them practice since day one. I knew these girls got something.”
What they had was a tenacious defense that frustrated the more vaunted Lexington Catholic (15-6-2) attack all night despite giving away a huge edge in possession of the ball. And when the Knights did get a shot off, keeper Breland Finch was able to make saves and keep LexCath out of the net.
“Toward the end of the season, we started figuring out who’s best at which position and I think in this game we just all came together,” said Beaumont, a Hampton University commit. “We don’t want this to be our last night.”
Henry Clay will play Dunbar at 6 p.m. Saturday at Lexington Christian’s Larry W. Turner Memorial Stadium.
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1, Frederick Douglass 0
In a physical battle between two district runners-up, Paul Laurence Dunbar outlasted Frederick Douglass 1-0 Thursday to advance to the finals of the 11th Region Tournament.
Ashlyn Fuller took an Audrey Rawls drop pass in stride at the top center of the box and powered home a shot into the upper left corner of the goal to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead with 10 minutes left in the first half.
“Audrey played a great ball, and all I did was finish it,” said Fuller, a sophomore forward who notched her 10th goal of the season. “She did the work.” It was Rawls’ team-leading 14th assist.
Douglass, which had one win in their inaugural season last year, earned a 15-8-1 record this season and came prepared to disprove their No. 60 ranking in state.
Like LexCath, Dunbar (16-3-1), the No. 6 team in the state, controlled most of the possession, but was continually frustrated by a determined Douglass defense and a sensational performance by the Broncos’ sophomore goalkeeper, Maliya Crump.
“She made some great saves,” Fuller said. “We just came out too excited. We got our goal, but we weren’t connecting. We were letting them get in our heads.”
First-year Coach Megan Poage acknowledged her team struggled to settle down.
“Hopefully, they got it out of their system and we can bring it on Saturday,” Poage said.
Dunbar lost in the 43rd District finals to LexCath on penalty kicks, a memory that’s fueling them for the region finals.
“The girls want it. They’ve put in everything that they can,” Poage said. “They don’t want this journey to stop.”
This story was originally published October 18, 2018 at 11:45 PM.