Triumph and tribute: Dunbar wins fifth soccer title as goal-scorer honors friend
After losing a player to a red card midway through the first half, Paul Laurence Dunbar Coach James Wray had one important message for his team.
“I said, ‘Nothing changes. We keep playing the way we want to play. We’ve just got one less man, right now,’” Wray recalled.
Outmanned, but not outplayed, the Bulldogs never backed off and their all-out approach paid off with a 2-1 victory over Covington Catholic on Saturday in the KHSAA Boys’ State Soccer Championship at Frederick Douglass High School. The win marked Dunbar’s fifth state crown and first since 2013.
“I’m just so happy,” said senior Issac Cano, the tournament’s most valuable player who scored the game’s first goal early in the second half and assisted on the second. “All that hard work — we told ourselves this is the last game we’d be together and we were going to give it everything we had when we came out here. And we did that.”
The game had special meaning for game-winning goal-scorer Rodrigo “Rico” Romero, who lost a friend in a violent attack two days before the game.
Late in the second half with the game tied 1-1, Cano maneuvered the ball to the right edge of the 18-yard box and served a ball across the near post where Romero headed it home in a flash with 6:58 remaining.
Romero held off removing his jersey in the celebration to avoid getting carded, but after the game he revealed the hand-lettering on his T-shirt underneath — a tribute to Dunbar sophomore Sergio Villarados, who was found shot to death Thursday night.
“He was still here. He wasn’t here physically, but he was still proud of me and he’d be hugging me, right now,” a somber, tearful Romero said. “It felt good, because it was for our team and especially for him.”
Romero called Wray with the news Friday and shared what his friend meant to him, but there was no question about whether Romero would play.
“I can’t imagine,” Wray said. “I lost a friend when I was young, and it took me months to get over it. I said, ‘You do what you need to do.’ And he said, ‘Coach, I’m playing tomorrow.’”
Wray called Romero’s game-winner “poetic.”
“I just focused on the game,” Romero said. “I knew I had to score, and I knew I had to do something for him.”
A red card for Dunbar’s Joany “Jio” Chavez 19 minutes into the game could have substantially dimmed Dunbar’s chances. Chavez got a yellow card for a midfield foul 10 minutes earlier and his second yellow for a studs-up tackle trying to keep possession of the ball near CovCath’s 18. Two yellows equals a red and had Dunbar playing with 10 players instead of 11 the rest of the game.
But Dunbar kept attacking. Cano, who scored four goals in Wednesday’s semifinals against Elizabethtown, got his goal Saturday off a corner kick into the box served by Ryan O’Hara just over two minutes into the second half. Cano timed his volley as soon as the ball touched the ground as he received it in front of the far post. He sent it back the other way into the top right netting.
“I told you guys all year, he’s the best player in the state,” Wray said. “And I think this tournament, he’s more than proven it to me. He’s just got a will that just won’t quit. He’s our leader off the field. He’s the hardest worker at practice. He’s always talking to the boys and making sure they’re ready to play.”
Covington Catholic answered a few minutes later as Dunbar keeper John Sader couldn’t handle a solidly struck free kick from 25 yards out. The spill fell into the path of Colton Pieper, who tied the game 1-1 with just over 31 minutes left. Buoyed by the tying goal, the Colonels became far more aggressive the rest of the way. The Colonels (14-9-5) entered the postseason with a record under .500 before reeling off eight straight wins.
“I knew they’d come out and fight in the second half,” Wray said of Covington Catholic. “I knew that we were on the front foot most of the first half, but Covington Catholic came back and played well the second half. They got us kind of pushed back for quite a bit of the game and I told the guys just keep fighting, keep trying and it’ll come. It’ll come.”
While the title is the fifth for the Bulldogs (22-3-2), it is the first under Wray, who took over the program last year after the departure of former coach Todd Bretz. Wray, a Dunbar alumnus, played for Bretz, the state’s all-time high school boys’ soccer wins leader, who is now at Sayre.
“We’re just happy to be able to contribute to the tradition,” Wray said. “Number five for Dunbar and we’re not done. We’re going to keep fighting and keep trying to get back here next year. We’ve got a lot of young guys and talent coming up through the ranks, but this is special this year. I knew at the start of the year we had a group that could possibly get it done. But any of these are hard to win.”
Notre Dame wins girls’ crown
Natalie Bain headed in Ellie Greenwell’s corner kick just under midway through the second half and Notre Dame held on for a 1-0 victory over South Oldham and the school’s fourth KHSAA’ Girls State Soccer Championship in the finals at Frederick Douglass High School on Saturday.
“It feels better than I could have imagined,” Bain said. “We needed to put one in and it just came to me, and I gave it everything I had and put it in the goal.”
The win completed an undefeated season for the Pandas (28-0-1), who have been ranked as the No. 1 team all season and among the top-ranked high school girls’ teams in the nation.
Bain said the team did feel pressure, but more so for their seniors than for any expectations.
“It felt like a lot of pressure just because it was my last year, and I wanted that state ring really bad, and I would do anything for it,” Bain said.
First-year Notre Dame Coach Suli Kayed embraced the expectations when he took the job and he credited his seniors for helping lead them to the title.
“That senior class is special, man. We have nine of them who are starters. All the credit goes to them,” Kayed said. “Now, I’m just happy. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet to be honest with you. It’s been my goal and as I told the girls, it’s been the best coaching year for me, and even when I was a player, nothing matches this year.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2021 at 11:15 PM.
