Franklin County's Kevin Hernandez moves the ball across the field during a game Monday at Lawrence County High School. Hernandez had two goals and an assist in the 4-1 win.
Franklin County's Kevin Hernandez moves the ball across the field during a game Monday at Lawrence County High School. Hernandez had two goals and an assist in the 4-1 win.
The Franklin County High School boys soccer team beat the Lawrence County Wildcats 4-1 on the road Monday for the team’s sixth win of the season.
The Wildcats overcame a slight halftime deficit to tie the score midway through the second half, but Franklin County retook the lead later in the period and pulled away in the last 10 minutes for a district victory.
The win clinched the No. 2 seed for Franklin County in the upcoming District 8AA tournament as the team will get a bye straight to the semifinals of the bracket.
Franklin County head soccer coach Kent Bean said that he was proud of his team’s overall effort for the day against a challenging opponent.
“That was a tough Lawrence County team. They’re really strong defensively and held us off for a long time,” he said. “I’m proud of our guys for fighting, keeping their head up, staying in it and realizing that we had controlled a lot of the game and we’ve just got to be patient and take our time to get one in the goal.”
The first goal of the day came with about 24 minutes remaining in the first half as a shot from Kevin Hernandez deflected off of Lawrence County’s goalkeeper and into the air with Loui Arellano heading the ball into the net from there to give Franklin County a 1-0 lead. It was the third goal of the season for Arellano.
Franklin County led 1-0 at halftime.
The Wildcats were awarded a penalty kick with 19:20 remaining in the contest, and their kicker converted on his attempt to tie the score at 1-1 late in the contest.
With 15:34 remaining in the game and the score still tied, a Lawrence County player was given his second yellow card of the day after taking down Hernandez from behind on a breakaway, resulting in a cumulative red card to give Franklin County an 11-on-10 advantage for the rest of the contest.
Hernandez was tripped from behind again a few minutes later with this penalty occurring in the goal box to set up a successful penalty kick from Alex DeWolfe to give Franklin County a 2-1 lead with 10:56 remaining. It was DeWolfe’s second goal of the season.
Franklin County struck for another goal with about three minutes remaining to effectively put the game out of reach as a deflected shot from Arellano found the feet of Hernandez, who finished the play and scored to grow the lead up to 3-1.
Hernandez added one more goal for good measure with 1:45 remaining as he got behind the defense after receiving a pass from DeWolfe and fired a shot into the net for his second goal of the day and his 24th of the campaign to set the final deficit at three.
With the win, Franklin County improved to 6-4-2 on the season and 3-1-1 in district play.
The boys soccer team will next play Tuesday at home against Shelbyville Central High School. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
