Shorter season means no time to waste as boys’ soccer playoffs start Monday
In a season unlike any other, the defending state champion Henry Clay boys’ soccer team has a monumental task on its hands to not only mesh as a team around four returning starters, but also to escape the difficult 42nd District and 11th Region tournaments.
“From the beginning, we knew we didn’t have a lot of time,” senior midfielder Keenan Wilson said after the team’s final regular-season game, a 2-0 win Tuesday over city rival Tates Creek. “We knew we had to grow up fast. So, it was just an immediate mindset of we’ve got to be the best every night. And I think we just continue to prove that with every game.”
The Blue Devils, like many soccer teams around the state dealing with the shortened COVID-19 season, have played about half the games they normally would with a 9-1 record — their only loss to undefeated Paul Laurence Dunbar.
As Wilson said, the problem for everyone is getting enough experience to get their teams in playoff shape. The playoffs begin Monday across the state and in Lexington with the 42nd and 43rd district tournaments.
“I wish I had another month of regular season or I would have had another couple weeks of preseason,” Henry Clay Coach Jason Behler said. “I just feel like we’re going to just have to keep working as we go through the postseason. Usually, you’re about polished when you get there, and I don’t feel like we are at all.”
Pandemic restrictions have students schooling from home instead of a classroom. And it has changed the nature of team sports, as well. Behler lamented that normally around this time, his players would be hanging out after school, having sandwiches in his classroom ahead of a practice or game that night.
“It’s a weird year man,” Behler said. “There’s no structure or schedule to these kids’ days. — there is to a certain extent — but it’s on them to adhere to that. There’s not a bell or a teacher ushering them to class or sometimes a parent watching over them. Usually we have a routine … but there’s going to be no real routine this year or anything like that. … It’s just going to be different. Not necessarily good or bad — just just different.”
What is routine for the Blue Devils and their 11th Region foes is the familiarity they have for each other. And that familiarity is one of the reasons why this soccer region is one of the toughest in the state.
“All of these guys know each other’s tendencies and it becomes as much about who is mentally tough and can handle the emotion of the game as it is about who is physically, technically and tactically good,” Behler said.
Behler’s teams have typically gelled over the long haul of a regular season in time to be peaking toward the end. They made a run into the state semis in 2018 and to the championship in 2019. Those mental challenges seem to outweigh the normal physical ones this year.
“I told my guys day one: ‘This year is all about our mental strength to just sort of let things bounce off of us if it’s not going our way or if something happens that’s out of the ordinary or if our season gets shut down,’” Behler said. “We just have to be stronger than that.”
Wilson believes his team has the right mix and is primed to defend.
“It’s coming together pretty nicely for us,” he said. “We’ve been playing really good soccer recently. We were finishing pretty well. I really like the focus of this team. It’s really fun to play with these guys, and I’m really looking forward to the postseason.”
Bryan Station could be a sleeping giant with the return of senior midfielder Ivan Nkinzo, who had been with his club team until Oct. 1. Frederick Douglass might have just played its best game of the season against Paul Laurence Dunbar, battling the Bulldogs to a 3-3 tie, Dunbar’s only result in 10 games that wasn’t a W.
That Dunbar team, under first-year coach James Wray, is the No. 1 seed in the 43rd District and the No. 7 team in the state, according to MaherRankings.com. But it will be tested in its quest to reach the 11th Region tournament and beyond. District rivals Tates Creek, Lafayette and Lexington Catholic each rank in the top 35 and Lexington Christian battled the Bulldogs into overtime before falling 4-3 earlier this season.
Boys’ soccer
42ND DISTRICT PLAYOFFS
Monday: Scott County (3-7-0) at Sayre (2-4-2), 5 p.m.
Tuesday: Henry Clay (9-1-0) vs. Scott County-Sayre winner, 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Frederick Douglass (6-5-2) at Bryan Station (4-3-3), 6:30 p.m.
Thursday: Championship, 6 p.m.
43RD DISTRICT PLAYOFFS
All games at Lexington Catholic
Monday: Lexington Christian (5-5-1) vs. Lexington Catholic (5-7-0), 7 p.m.
Tuesday: Lexington Christian-Lexington Catholic winner vs. Paul Laurence Dunbar (9-0-1), 5:30 p.m.; Tates Creek (5-3-0) vs. Lafayette (5-6-1), 8 p.m.
Thursday: Championship, 7 p.m.
This story was originally published October 11, 2020 at 11:02 AM.
