One game stayed tight the entire time and the other one for one half Sunday.
But when the dust settled, the host and top-seeded Conner Cougars (16-3-3) and the third-seeded Cooper Jaguars (11-6-2) advanced to Tuesday’s district championship game at 6 p.m. Conner is back in the title game for the fifth straight year and Cooper is back in it for the first time since 2020.
Cooper 2, Ryle 1
Similar to the regular season match-up, one goal decided this one, but the winner changed. Cooper dominated possession in the second half on the way to the win after Ryle edged Cooper, 3-2 on Sept. 20th at Ryle in a shootout.
The stats reflected it as Cooper put up seven corner kicks to none for Ryle. The Raiders also committed nine fouls to five for the Jaguars.
Cooper outshot second-seeded Ryle, 20-8, including a 10-4 advantage on net. Ryle goalkeeper Maleah Lehmkuhl gave the Raiders a chance with eight saves and Cooper goalkeeper Allie Ames made three.
“Credit to our girls who at this point (in the season) because of some injuries and other things that have happened, we’re relying upon four freshmen and three different sophomores in the primary line-up right now,” said Scott Hughes, Cooper head coach. “I think they’re young enough to where they’re unfazed by the spotlight a bit. So they came out and one instruction we told them was, ‘Don’t stop on any play.’ They listened to that. They went out and competed on every single play. It’s ultimately what I thought was able to carry us.”
The scoring starter when Ryle (7-10-1) was called for a handball from just outside the attack box. Senior Kathrynne Day stepped forward and booted the free kick to the right for the goal to put the Jaguars up 1-0 at halftime.
“They had their wall. But I saw their goalkeeper and I had that gap so I just kept it low and hit it hard enough to where even if she got a touch, it would go in,” Day said. “It comes to that a lot. When we played them in the regular season, one of our two goals was off a free kick, so we take all those opportunities and we finish them.”
Ryle did get a free kick opportunity with 2:24 left in the first half. But Gracie Carrigan’s shot went off a teammate and Cooper cleared it.
“I think the game the game was very similar to the first time that we played from both sides,” said Kyle Kosco, Ryle head coach. “Neither team changed much. A questionable hand ball did not set the tone well for us early in the game. But the girls responded well and leveled it.”
The Jaguars had a big scoring opportunity just more than five minutes into the second half. Cooper senior Claire Tveton came just inches left from giving the Jaguars a 2-0 lead with 34:16 left.
Ryle freshman Ella Hoenderkamp did not miss her scoring opportunity. She took on the right side and booted it left to tie the game at 1-1 with 31:50 left in the game.
“I think the most important part was our organized defense,” said Miley McDermott, Cooper senior defender. “It wasn’t just one person. Everyone really worked together to guard (the top Ryle goal-scorers) and to help make sure they didn’t get any balls in the net, especially after their game-tying goal. We were unfazed.”
Cooper kept up the pressure and took the lead with 18:34 left in the game. Kamdyn Hamilton took the ball on the right side and put up a long shot for her seventh goal of the season.
“I’ll say for the last two and a half weeks, her effort has been off the charts,” Hughes said of Hamilton. “She’s kind of rediscovered who she wants to be as a player and she’s unleashed it. So for her to work that hard and then have that field awareness when the keeper stepped off the line that much. It’s not only gratifying for us because it propelled us to the win. But I’m super happy for a player like Kamdyn because she deserved it.”
Ryle may have started off the season 1-8. But the Raiders won six in a row starting with three wins in the Smoky Mountain Cup in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
“I think it was a good season and I think that even when we were struggling a bit in the beginning of the season,” Kosco said. “Most of the games were close. We dominated a lot of the play. The results just didn’t fall our way because we weren’t able to find the back of the net as much as we’d like. But I think as we turned the second half of the season and had that winning streak, we started to see what we kind of expect moving forward. We had a lot of positives from the season for sure.”
Ryle missed the region tournament for the first time since 2020. The Raiders graduate nine seniors including two of their leading goal-scorers in Carrigan and Hannah Engel.
Conner 5, Boone County 0
The Cougars led 1-0 at halftime behind Milana Arevalo’s first goal and then opened the second half with a flurry, scoring three goals in the first 12 minutes to pull away for the victory.
Conner is headed to the district championship for the fifth straight year. Ella Mann and Arevalo scored two goals each for the Cougars. Mann’s two goals came with 36:51 and 29:15 left in the game.
Arevalo’s second goal came with 24:11 left in the game. Arevalo broke in double-digit goals for the season with 11, which is good for second on the Cougars behind 16 from Cayley Eilers.
“The message was at halftime was more about settling down into what we were doing and applying the pressure sooner and quicker. I thought we had possession. I thought we took a little too long and we needed to counter a little quicker,” said Mike Hughes, Conner head coach. “We had opportunities. We were offsides a couple times. As you can see, we didn’t give them any breathing room in the first 10 minutes of that second half.”
The Cougars went up 3-0 with 31:16 when Izelee Kerns scored off a Caitlyn Kenny corner kick.
“In the first half, we came out not ourselves,” Kenny said. “Connecting with Izlee on that corner kick really just brought (our energy) back. I have a certain spot I go for every time because (Kerns) is always there. I drive it straight there.”
Boone County (5-13) has 21 players on its roster. Seven are seniors. But head coach John Hicks pointed out this game was an improvement from the 9-0 loss at the same field Aug. 23.
“They were undermanned. We always play with fewer numbers than everyone else,” Hicks said. “We wore down in the second half. But I couldn’t be more proud of the team. They gave 110 percent.”
Boone County last made the region tournament in 2018 when Mike Hughes was the head coach. The last district championship came in 2016.