Farragut’s Kai Miettinen and Bearden’s Bryson Lott give chase to a ball in the open field of the Admirals’ 6-0 road victory over the Bulldogs. Miettinen scored the game’s first goal in the seventh minute. Photo by Dan Andrews.

By Ken Lay

The Farragut High-Bearden High boys soccer rivalry has seen plenty of hotly contested and intense matches over the past several years.

But Friday night, the latest chapter between Knoxville’s top Class AAA powerhouses proved to be anything but intriguing as the visiting Admirals posted a 6-0 victory over the Bulldogs at Bruce Allender Field.

And Bearden coach Eric Turner couldn’t hide his disgust after watching his team fall to 4-9-2 overall and 3-2 in District 4-AAA.

“This wasn’t a tough loss,” Turner said. “We’re a bad AYSO team and we played with no intensity. We’re like emotional zombies.

“You work 17 years to build a program based on intensity and hard work. Now, you have a team that doesn’t do that and it hurts. Give Farragut credit. They came to play and we didn’t and the result shows that. Farragut deserved it.”

Farragut, which was coming off a home loss to Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett Tuesday night, wasted little time grabbing the upper hand in the most recent chapter of Knox County’s biggest soccer rivalry.

The Admirals (10-3, 4-1) took a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute when Kai Miettinen buried a shot in the corner of the Bulldogs net. Miettinen’s marker was the first of five Farragut tallies before halftime.

“Five first-half goals was a surprise to me and I’m sure that it was a surprise to them,” Admirals’ coach Wallie Culbreth said.

Farragut dropped a district match to Maryville recently and that 1-0 setback likely cost the Admirals an automatic Region 2-AAA Tournament bid but Culbreth said that he’s confident that his team can snag the other regional bid with a stellar performance in the District 4-AAA Tournament.

“We’ll do OK in the district tournament,” he said. “My guys have confidence that we can get out.”

Friday night’s effort certainly did nothing to dampen the Admirals’ spirits. Farragut scored five goals on its first 10 shots. Emilio More made it 2-0 with a marker in the 12th minute.

Ethan Snow scored seven minutes later to extend Farragut’s advantage to 3-0.

Admirals junior forward Marvin Mendy had the final two goals of the first half. He would go on to complete a hat trick in the 66th minute.

“It feels awesome to score three goals,” Mendy said.  “Bearden is our best competition.

“We came over here my freshman year and they beat us. We came in here tonight looking for revenge. Scoring three goals against them is a great feeling.”