Catholic heads to final four
For the first time since 2008, Knoxville Catholic High School’s boys soccer team is headed to Spring Fling and the State Final Four.
The Irish punched their ticket to Murfreesboro with a penalty kicks shootout victory over Montgomery Bell Academy Saturday, May 16, in Nashville in the state quarterfinals.
The teams played to a 1-1 draw over 80 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of extra time sending the match to penalty kicks. Catholic won the shootout, 4-3, to advance to the state semifinals, which will open today (May 20).
The Irish will play Briarcrest Christian School at 3 p.m. EDT at the Richard Siegel Soccer Complex.
In the quarterfinals, Montgomery Bell scored first in the 15th minute of the match. Catholic’s Jack Tucker scored the equalizer approximately a minute later.
“They scored in the 15th minute and then we scored about a minute later,” KCHS coach Josh Martin said. “That was a pretty exciting time of the match.”
Neither of the sides found the back of the opposing net during the remainder of the first half and the teams slugged though a scoreless second half and overtime period.
Catholic would prevail in the shootout as Tucker, Trevor Belanger, Graham Gibson and Lambros Christopoulos, tallied in the shootout.
Meanwhile, KCHS goalkeeper Tate McCarty made two big saves during penalty kicks to help the Irish win over the MBA, the top-seeded team in the state tournament.
Catholic plays one of the area’s toughest schedules and Martin said that slate of games helped prepare for his squad for its deep postseason run.
“This was big for us,” Martin said. “In Knoxville, Tennessee, we have great teams all over the city and many of those teams are within 10 miles of us.
“We play a tough schedule and that really helped us.”
