Dunbar locks up top district seed in quest to revisit boys’ soccer postseason glory
Defending state champion Paul Laurence Dunbar has done all it can do to set the table for another deep run in the boys’ high school soccer playoffs with a little more than two weeks left in the regular season.
The No. 5 Bulldogs’ 2-0 win over No. 10 Lexington Catholic on Tuesday wrapped up the top seed for next month’s 43rd District Tournament. Now it’s a matter of using the next few games to get ready for districts and beyond.
“We’re getting there. The thing I’ve been stressing with them is the consistency of effort every game and this is probably the best effort we’ve had,” said Dunbar Coach James Wray. “The young guys, it takes awhile to understand — game after game after game — the effort needed. … I think they are starting to understand what we expected of them.”
The Bulldogs have faced some of the best of the rest this season, including Maher Rankings No. 4 Frederick Douglass, a senior-laden monster who has already also wrapped up its top seed in the 42nd District by running the table over there. Douglass held a 1-0 lead over Dunbar in an early-season matchup that was wiped out by lightning and not resumed or rescheduled. Dunbar topped Douglass each of the last two years on extra time penalty kicks in the region tournament.
“If we get an opportunity to face them, that’s so far away, I’m not even thinking about that right now,” Wray said of Douglass. “It’s nice to wrap up the one seed, although I don’t know that there’s much difference in the top two-three-four teams here. We’ve got some stuff to finish out the regular season and hopefully get through districts.”
Dunbar (7-2-1) tied No. 3 St. Xavier 1-1 at home on Saturday. The Bulldogs’ only losses have come to No. 1 Ballard, a 4-1 defeat in Louisville, and to the No. 9 team in Indiana, Newburgh’s Castle High School, a 1-0 defeat. Next up, Dunbar faces No. 25 Bryan Station, No. 19 Dixie Heights, No. 21 Henry Clay before hosting a solid Bishop Brossart team to close out the regular season.
“I’d say (Ballard) is probably the best team we’ve faced this year, but, you know, St. X is there, Douglass is there, Catholic’s a solid team,” Wray said. “I don’t know that we’re quite to the level we were last year, but I think there’s a lot of really good teams. I don’t know that there’s one superstar team this year that’s just unbeatable.”
Tuesday, Dunbar scored its first goal on a penalty kick after LexCath was called for a handball in the box. Gio Chavez wrong-footed the Knights’ keeper for a 1-0 lead late in the first half.
The second goal came less than a minute into the second half as Dunbar defender Charlie Kilpatrick broke up a Lexington Catholic counterattack and fed Kasen Johnston at midfield. Johnston turned and spotted Chavez making a run up the middle and lobbed a precision 30-yard pass to him across his body and in stride inside the 18-yard box. Chavez’s first touch hammered the ball into the top right corner of the goal for the 2-0 lead.
It’s the kind of effort Wray sees from the two juniors all the time in practice, he said.
“I think it’s just how we’ve always linked together in practice,” Chavez said. “The connection’s always there, and I feel like he knows where I’m going or I know which run to make when he has the ball.”
The rest of the Dunbar team is beginning to feel that kind of connection as well, the players said.
“At the beginning, we started off slow, but over time, we’ve become more of a team,” Johnston said. “We’re finally starting to come together … and be good to each other.”
It’s been a process.
“I think it has a lot to do with the amount of seniors we lost last year,” Chavez said. “The young classes are starting to step up, and us too.”
