Warhorses keep rolling in the playoffs
Owen soccer downs Patton, 4-2, to advance to fourth round
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
November 8, 2022
It would take more than 80 minutes of soccer in front of a boisterous home crowd, Nov. 7, but the Warhorses advanced beyond the third round of the NCHSAA 2A State Playoffs for the first time in the program’s history.
Owen, led by 2 goals from sophomore Davis Kendall, picked up its 14th straight victory with a 4-2 win in overtime over the Patton Panthers.
Both teams entered the contest coming off second round upsets, with the No. 10 seed Warhorses advancing past No. 7 Robinson and the No. 15 Panthers knocking out No. 2 Wheatmore.
The Monday night matchup tested Owen, which established a 1-0 lead in the fifth minute of play, when Kendall broke away from a pair of Panthers for a shot on goal, which deflected back to him off the post. With the rebound, the striker looked across the field to find senior Nino Luther, who put it in for his 7th goal of the season. The Patton defense, however, remained unrelenting as the teams traded possessions throughout the first half.
The Warhorses, who improved to 19-2-1 with the win, maintained the 1-goal advantage over the 18-4-1 Panthers through the 64th minute, when a penalty kick by the visiting team slipped past senior goalkeeper Nolan Swoap, tying the match.
Kendall responded five minutes later, working his way to the center of the field against a pair of defenders and turning back to his right with a powerful shot past the Patton keeper. Owen held the 2-1 through most of the 78th minute, but a Panthers penalty kick with 1:05 remaining knotted the score, 2-2, at the end of regulation.
Facing overtime for the first time this year, first-year head coach Trei Morrison said his team focused on the four core tenets of the program.
“We play hard, play smart, play together and play to win, and that’s what we’ve said since day one,” he said. “They said it going into overtime, not me, so I knew they believed it and I knew we were going to be good. They were locked in.”
While the Warhorses needed 80 minutes to score a pair of goals in regulation, it took a little more than two minutes to match that total in overtime. Junior Elijah Caro put his team up, 3-2, early in the frame, as he rebounded a shot by Kendall and drilled it past the Patton goalkeeper with his left leg. Less than 90 seconds later, Kendall broke away on the left slide to slip another goal through the right corner of the net for his 44th goal of the campaign.
The Owen defense held that lead against the hard-charging Panthers through the final buzzer.
“They are a very good team,” Morrison said of Patton after the match. “But, the last 20 minutes I felt like it was all us. They are well-coached, and did a great job getting the ball into the back side, but in the last 10 minutes of overtime, we went to three in the back, so we weren’t as exposed in those back corners.”
The Warhorses were pushed by the best team they’ve faced this season, according to the coach.
“They play a lot like us,” he said. “They were calm, they kept and moved the ball. This was a battle, like two heavyweights exchanging blows. But, we’ve talked all season long about maintaining our focus and intensity, and our guys didn’t slow down at the end.”
Owen, which is one of eight teams remaining in the postseason tournament, will travel to Winston-Salem to face No. 6 North Forsyth at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10. The 18-5-2 Vikings advanced with a 3-0 victory over No. 3 Forbush in the third round.
“As we’ve been saying all year, we want to focus on our game and force our opponents to adjust to what we do,” Morrison said. “We’re going to do what we do, and try to do it better than the other team.”
Photos of Owen’s third round victory over Patton can viewed in the gallery at the top of the page.