Notre Dame, South Oldham to meet for Kentucky high school girls’ soccer state title
The 2021 Kentucky high school girls’ soccer state championship match is set.
This year’s state tournament will conclude with Notre Dame Academy facing South Oldham in Saturday’s title game.
Both Notre Dame and South Oldham reached the championship match after dominant victories at the semifinal stage.
Notre Dame, which is undefeated this season, bested West Jessamine, 3-0. In the other semifinal, South Oldham used three first-half goals to defeat Henderson County, 5-0.
Both semifinals took place Thursday night in cold and rainy conditions at Frederick Douglass High School in Lexington.
The Pandas and Lady Dragons will meet for the state championship at 7 p.m. Saturday, also at Frederick Douglass.
Notre Dame and South Oldham have already played each other once this season, a 3-0 win for the Pandas on Aug. 16.
Notre Dame 3, West Jessamine 0: In a matchup of teams with first-year head coaches, Notre Dame remained undefeated through 28 matches this season thanks to second-half goals by Amber Branum, Kennedy Clark and Marina Ruthsatz.
Notre Dame head coach Suli Kayed said the feeling of advancing was more relief than anything else, and the Pandas have already shifted their focus to Saturday night’s title match.
“We don’t necessarily forget about what happened. We’ve got to keep that pride because they earned every piece of it,” Kayed said of Notre Dame’s win earlier this season over South Oldham. “But just because we beat them earlier in the season doesn’t mean it will be the same outcome.”
Notre Dame (27-0-1) has been nothing short of dominant in 2021. Widely considered the best team in the state, the Pandas have already won both the 35th District and 9th Region championships, and haven’t lost a match since Oct. 19, 2020.
Notre Dame has scored 116 goals this season and stunningly has allowed only four.
The goal by Clark was her 14th of the season, and the goal by Ruthsatz was her 18th, which ties Ruthsatz for the team lead with senior Macie Feldman.
Notre Dame changed formations three times on Thursday night in an effort to unlock the West Jessamine defense.
Thursday’s result meant West Jessamine ends the season with a 16-7-1 record, but an appearance in the state semifinals in the first season under head coach Ben Hall-Volpenhein was described by him postgame as a great experience.
“This whole journey. We’re thin, don’t have a ton of maturity, bunch of young players, first year for me, new system, style. They’ve done more than shock me, I think they’ve shocked themselves. I think they’ve shocked everyone,” Hall-Volpenhein said.
West Jessamine made its first state semifinals appearance 10 years ago with Hall-Volpenhein as an assistant coach, but after former coach Kevin Wright retired last year, Hall-Volpenhein stepped in to lead the program.
The Colts won their sixth consecutive 12th Region championship this year, and had gone at least 680 consecutive minutes without allowing a goal before Notre Dame scored Thursday night.
“The whole thing has been surreal. It’s been a different purpose,” Hall-Volpenhein added about his debut season as head coach. “I love pouring into each one of them. ... It’s a great responsibility.”
Thursday’s match also continued a theme of state tournament clashes between Notre Dame and West Jessamine.
The two schools have met five times since 2011, all in the state tournament. Notre Dame won in 2011 and 2013, while West Jessamine won in 2016 and 2017, with both coming as part of back-to-back state titles won by West Jessamine in those years.
This time though, it’s Notre Dame that hopes to use a win in this match as a springboard toward another state title.
The Pandas have won girls’ soccer state championships in 2004, 2011 and 2013.
“We are good whether you’re packing it in or coming out and playing us,” Kayed said. “We train both scenarios. We go into every game knowing that a team can do either one of them, so just being disciplined enough to play the way you play no matter how the other team is setting up.”
South Oldham 5, Henderson County 0: The most recent of the seven girls’ soccer state titles won by South Oldham came in 2014, the season before current head coach Kenneth Burke swapped the boys’ soccer head coaching job at South Oldham to become the leader of the girls’ soccer program.
Burke made the state semifinals with the South Oldham boys’ program in 2014, but come Saturday night Burke will coach in his first state title game and have the chance to help guide the Lady Dragons to an unprecedented eighth state championship.
Currently, South Oldham is tied with last year’s state champion, Sacred Heart, for the most girls’ soccer state championships in Kentucky history.
“We have a saying that started about three years ago that we play for those that came before us, we play for those now and we play for those that are going to come after us,” Burke said. “We try to set at least the standard for what we believe South Oldham soccer should be so that all of the little girls that are coming to watch us play and ball girls and whatnot, that that’s the level that it should be.”
South Oldham has outscored its opponents 41-2 dating back to the 29th District title game. South Oldham has won both the 29th District championship and the 8th Region championship already this season.
South Oldham (23-2-0) scored three times in the first half, in addition to second-half scores by freshman Adison Welsh and senior Alexis George, to defeat Henderson County (19-7-0) on Thursday night.
The Lady Dragons played all 23 field players in Thursday’s win.
“When you get out to a big venue like this, you have all of these fans, everything’s different when you play in a state semifinal,” Burke said. “Once you get out there, the first couple of minutes it’s just kind of hectic. You get settled in and once you start to play ... my thing was, ‘Are we going to be able to handle those situations?’ And I was very pleased that they handled all of the external things that could possibly take your head out of it.”
Saturday
Notre Dame Academy vs. South Oldham
What: KHSAA girls’ soccer state championship match
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Frederick Douglass High School
Records: Notre Dame 27-0-1, South Oldham 23-2-0
Live video broadcast: KHSAA.tv (subscription required)
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 10:23 AM.
