By Ken Lay
A District 4-3A soccer match couldn’t be decided in 80 minutes of regulation play and 20 more minutes of golden-goal overtime Thursday night.
So, when the final whistle sounded, ending a 0-0 draw at Farragut Soccer Stadium between West High and the host Admirals, the outcome had to be decided on penalty kicks by league rules.
The match was declared a tie, but West won the penalty kicks, 4-3, after Rebels’ goalkeeper Ben Laing stopped Farragut’s final shot in the shootout before a celebration by the visitors.
For both West High coach Nick Kim and Farragut’s Bradley Culbreth, the outcome wasn’t a big surprise.
“All credit to Farragut. That’s a great team over there and they had a game plan,” Kim said. “Every match in this district is going to look like this.
“And it was big for us to come in here and get a tie or a win or whatever you want to call it, and I want to give a shout out to my keeper, Ben Laing, for making a couple of big saves during the shootout.”
Culbreth agreed.
“We had our chances and they (the Rebels) are a quality team. You don’t get 10 wins if you’re not when you play that kind of schedule, the kind of schedule that they play,” he said. “I’m happy with where we’re at.
“This goes down as a tie, but we did this to break ties and we did this to make it exciting. It’s tough when you lose, but it’s exciting when you win. We’ll learn from this. Whether you win or lose, you always learn from it.”
The two defenses and midfield units, along with Laing and the Admirals’ netminder Matthew Burney, took center stage on the pitch on this cool night in West Knox County.
West (10-1-2, 1-0-1 in the district) got the winning goal in the shootout from senior Oscar Wimmer in the fourth round of penalty kicks. The outcome went the Rebels’ way when the Admirals (9-0-1, 1-0-1) missed on their final opportunity.
West also got shootout goals from Oliver Bankston and Musa Kromah before Devid Aresu missed on his chance. Grayson Huffaker also tallied before Wimmer scored to win the shootout.
During the penalty kicks, Tyden Sanchez, Uday Sujithkumar and Lincoln Unger found the back of the net against Laing.
The Rebels and Admirals both had one shot on goal in extra time, with Farragut’s coming in the first half of the overtime frame. West had a shot in the second half of the 20-minute period.
