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| Indians winning streak reaches 13 |
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9/26/2014
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
The Montgomery County High School boys’ soccer program has had some nice runs in the past.
But having always played top-notch competition, long winning streaks have been hard to come by.
Not so this season as Coach Nick Pannell’s squad is currently sitting on a 13-game winning streak after rolling to five victories last week, including a three-game sweep in the Ashland/Russell Tournament over the weekend.
“It’s really nice but it’s also bittersweet,” Pannell said earlier this week. “You realize that it’s getting to the point now where the players realize it’s out there and you worry about them starting to press a little bit and maybe they don’t relax and just play the way they’ve been playing.”
The Indians out-scored the opposition 31-4 in five matches last week and they’ve now tallied 76 goals to their opponents’ 12 in 14 matches with the only loss coming in the season opener to Paul Laurence Dunbar, the defending state champions.
Dunbar, incidentally, currently has an 8-2-2 record and the Bulldogs are 7-0-2 against in-state competition, so far.
“We’re playing with a lot of confidence and we’ve had to overcome a few things that in past years might have been major hurdles for us,” Pannell added. “We’re just trying to stay on course and enjoy the experience.”
The previous weekend Pannell took his squad to Southland Christian Church in Lexington to volunteer in the Hope for Haiti Project there that sends pre-packaged meals to the island nation that’s been devastated by natural and health-related disasters.
“I want our guys to know that it’s a privilege to be able to go out and work hard and compete in a sport that you enjoy as opposed to so many places in the world where they’re dealing with things that sometimes we can’t even imagine.”
The Indians were the largest volunteer group there and Pannell said they received a “shout-out” from the organizers when the event concluded.
Pannell said they were planning to take the team to work at the soup kitchen in Lexington during the month of October.
“We’re always talking about the athletic field being like the classroom in terms of teaching our student/athletes about life and through this we’re just simply expanding the classroom a little more.”
Here’s a game-by-game rundown of last week’s action:
MCHS 2,
Dixie Heights 1
The Indians dominated in shots on goal 29-5 but never could pull away from the Colonels as they won the final game of the Ashland/Russell Tournament Sunday at Ashland Paul Blazer.
Caswell Fuller scored on a penalty kick and Nolan Moser got the other goal on an assist from Alex Shkrabba to give the Indians the victory.
Senior keeper Hunter Cole had seven saves.
MCHS 10, Ashland 0
The Tomcats had given up no more than five goals in any match this season but the Indians torched them for double figures.
Montgomery County moved out to a 6-0 lead and coasted in the second half.
Nolan Moser got the Indians off and running with a pair of goals on assists from Caswell Fuller and Marco Ortega.
Alex Shkrabba took a pass from Zach Hill and scored to make it 3-0 and then Schrabba assisted Fuller for the fourth goal of the game.
Garrett Grimes scored on an assist from Rasmussen Andreas and senior Landon Hall got the final goal of the first half, assisted by senior Mason Hatton.
Marco Ortega scored a pair of second half goals while Zach Hill and Caswell Fuller also scored in the second half.
Ortega also had his second assist of the game after the intermission.
The Tomcats had only four shots on goal.
MCHS 7, Russell 1
The Indians opened the Ashland/Russell Tournament with a win over the Red Devils at Russell.
Alex Shkrabba scored a pair of goals and Caswell Fuller scored two goals and added three assists for the Indians as they dominated the action.
Russell had just five shots on goal and scored late in the contest after Montgomery County led 2-0 at the half.
Andreas Rasmussen, Nolan Moser and Garrett Grimes also scored for Montgomery County.
MCHS 3,
Western Hills 0
Montgomery County got its toughest battle of the week when they traveled to Frankfort last week to face the Western Hills Wolverines.
The Indians led 1-0 at the half on a goal by Nolan Moser who was assisted by Mason Hatton.
Senior keeper Hunter Cole recorded seven saves in the match to help keep the Wolverines off the scoreboard as the Tribe recorded fifth shutout of the season.
Caswell Fuller gave the Indians some breathing room in the second half when he scored on a penalty kick and then Alex Shkrabba put the icing on the cake when he scored off an assist by Marco Ortega.
The Indians out-shot the Wolverines by a margin of 3-1 with 17 shots on goal to only six for Western Hills.
Sophomore Ben Spence was named the Man of the Match for the Indians.
MCHS 9,
Harrison County 2
This is normally a tough battle for the Indians but they led 5-0 and coasted to a 9-2 victory.
Nolan Moser got the scoring started when he took a pass from junior Corey Carpenter and found the net.
Caswell Fuller assisted Alex Shkrabba for the second goal and then it was a Moser to Fuller pass that resulted in goal number three.
Zach Hill scored an unassisted goal to make it 4-0 and then Hill assisted Alex Shkrabba for the fifth goal of the first half.
Hill and Shkrabba teamed up on another goal scored by Shkrabba to start the second half and the other goals by the Indians, all unassisted, were scored by Mason Hatton, Spencer Holder and Marco Ortega.
The game featured 36 fouls, 19 against Harrison County and Montgomery County was called for being off-sides 17 times in the contest.
The Indians moved to 5-0 against regional opponents on the season.
The Indians have now scored 72 goals on the season, led by Nolan Moser with 17, Alex Shkrabba with 14 and Caswell Fuller with 12.
Marco Ortega is close to double figures with nine and nine other players have also scored goals for the Indians
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