‘He’s a nightmare for defenses.’ Dunbar in state finals after senior’s four-goal night.
The 2021 high school boys’ soccer state championship match is set.
This year’s state tournament will conclude with Paul Laurence Dunbar facing Covington Catholic after both teams took different routes to reach Saturday’s finals.
Dunbar advanced to the state title match thanks to a standout performance by star striker Issac Cano, as the senior scored four goals, including a first-half hat trick, in a dominant 4-0 win over Elizabethtown in Wednesday night’s semifinals at Frederick Douglass High School in Lexington.
Covington Catholic used a lone goal from senior Aiden Hemmer off a corner kick to defeat Daviess County, 1-0, in the other semifinal.
The Bulldogs and Colonels will meet for the state championship at 4 p.m. Saturday at Frederick Douglass.
Paul Laurence Dunbar 4, Elizabethtown 0: Dunbar head coach James Wray believes that senior forward Issac Cano is the best high school player in Kentucky, and Cano’s performance Wednesday night lived up to that billing.
With the Elizabethtown student section jeering and screaming at him anytime he went near the ball, Cano quickly brought a hush to their taunts.
Cano scored three times inside the first 14 minutes, and four times over the entire 80 minutes, to lead the Bulldogs back to the state title game.
“If I hear something, I’m like, ‘Just let me get the ball and I’ll show them what I can do,’” Cano said postgame, after he shushed the Elizabethtown students following his opening goal. “It’s kind of cool that they already knew my name, but I just wanted to shut them up as soon as they started talking.”
The result was Elizabethtown’s first loss since Sept. 4, and the Panthers’ first defeat in 20 matches.
Dunbar already owns four state boys’ soccer championships, but was making its first state semifinals appearance since 2016 on Wednesday.
This is also the deepest postseason run for the Bulldogs under Wray, now in his second season as Dunbar head coach. The Bulldogs went undefeated in the regular season last year during Wray’s debut season, but the Bulldogs lost in the first round of the state tournament.
“We’re so much better when we move the ball and don’t try to take people on all the time,” said Wray, a 1996 Dunbar graduate. “We’ve really been working hard the past few practices to get the ball moving, break lines and try to find the guys up top making the runs in behind. They did a really good job of switching field tonight, moving the ball left to right, right to left.”
If Dunbar (21-3-2) is to win a fifth state championship, in addition to the 43rd District and 11th Region titles already earned this season, it will be a team effort.
But it will be a team effort powered by Cano, who now has 33 goals on the season.
Entering Saturday’s championship match, Cano has scored in four straight contests, including two hat tricks — in the first round of the state tournament against Corbin and the four-goal output against Elizabethtown (22-4-3).
“It’s just keeping my head and turning. It’s just the mentality, telling myself I’m going to win this ball,” Cano said. “It’s just my movement. I see someone get the ball and I think, ‘What run can I make?’ or ‘What can I do to get the ball?’”
“He’s a nightmare for defenses,” Wray added. “He can go left, he can go right, he’s got all kinds of talent.”
Covington Catholic 1, Daviess County 0: Wednesday’s first semifinal was decided by a single goal, scored by Covington Catholic senior Aiden Hemmer via a header from a corner kick by the Colonels.
Covington Catholic (14-8-5) had only one win entering a Sept. 9 road match at Cincinnati Country Day. Since winning that match 3-1, Covington Catholic has won 13 of 16 matches.
The Colonels have also already picked up hardware this season, winning both the 35th District and 9th Region championships.
“For these guys it’s all about grit. They’re hard workers,” head coach Jeremy Robertson Sr. said. “We finally have pieced some things together. We were even during the season missing some pieces due to injuries or whatever, but we’re just a totally different team right now since we hit the postseason.”
The Colonels began the tournament with a win via penalty kick shootout over Montgomery County before a double-overtime victory against Somerset.
“We’re just playing like a team, there’s no individual play,” Robertson said, noting that the Colonels opted to shadow defend certain Daviess County players during the second half of the semifinal win.
The Colonels won the state championship in 2015, and exorcised some past demons on their way to another state finals.
Daviess County beat Covington Catholic on penalty kicks to win the 2016 state championship game.
Saturday will mark Covington Catholic’s first state title game appearance since that loss.
“Right now for these guys I just want them to have fun,” Robertson said. “Go out there and play and try not to make the easy mistakes. We’ve been really keen of the fundamentals and I think that’s really helped us as a unit, talking, organizing ... it’s just amazing right now.”
Saturday
Paul Laurence Dunbar vs. Covington Catholic
What: KHSAA boys’ soccer state championship match
When: 4 p.m.
Where: Frederick Douglass High School
Records: Paul Laurence Dunbar 21-3-2, Covington Catholic 14-8-5
Live video broadcast: KHSAA.tv (subscription required)
This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 8:09 AM.
