All “A” Soccer

Planning for tomorrow will get you in trouble every time. Especially in sports. Somerset soccer coach Steve Wallace planned on meeting Danville in the All “A” Region soccer tournament.
But, somewhere along the way, a bunch of Redhounds spoiled his trip to the Saturday night finals. Corbin, who had lost to the Briar Jumpers 3-0, August 23 in the Pulaski Cup, shocked the 8-1-2 Somerset boys, 2-1 in a shootout.
Wallace told the Somerset Commonwealth Journal, “I never thought we would lose to that group, because the last time we played them, we dominated them, outshooting them 23-2.”
And, in Thursday’s game, Somerset again dominated the shooting, 15-4. But, an Adam Lawson shot with 23:50 found the back of the net and tied the game 1-1.
The Corbin defense really stepped up and shut down the power Somerset attack and the game went into a shootout where Corbin finally won 7-6 in the 12th round.
After opening the season with three straight losses, two of which came against Pulaski County teams, Southwestern 5-0 and Somerset 3-0, the Redhounds have battled back. They beat North Laurel 2-0 then handed Pulaski County a 4-1 loss. Cima’s team then tied the Southwestern Warriors 0-0. They followed that with a 3-0 win over Oneida Baptist in the first-round of the All “A” Regional before the upset of Somerset.
Corbin lost the regional final to a very fine Danville team, 5-0.
I’m not really surprised by the quick turn around of the Redhounds. Cima is a veteran coach and knows what he is doing. Most of his teams played better as the season progressed. And, Corbin has an outstanding youth program. They have some fine, knowledgeable people running things and that is only going to help when these kids reach high school. Corbin is on the verge of being the Somerset of high school soccer. In not so many years to come, I believe Corbin will be the team to beat in the district instead of South Laurel. It’s not an over night thing either. It’s a building process and the stones have been laid.

Battle brewing
I know it’s weeks away, but there is a big battle on the horizon between the Jumpers and Yellow Jackets. If you follow the high school football stats, you will see Somerset and Williamsburg atop many of the categories. After four games each, Ross Deaton and Thomas Frazier led Class A football in passing. Deaton has hit on 49 of 89 passes for an average 260.7 yards per game and has thrown nine touchdowns. Frazier, the WYMT Player of the Week, has hit on 56 of 96 passes for an average of 245.3 with 11 touchdowns.
In the receiving department, John Cole is first in the state as well as Class A. The Somerset receiver has 492 yards on 26 catches and has hauled in seven touchdowns. Guess who is right behind in Class A, Williamsburg’s Chase Hamblin. He has 22 catches for 420 yards and six touchdowns. I think Frazier has more options this season than Deaton, thus Cole is at the top.
Williamsburg leads the district in scoring with a 35.5 average and is 10th in Class A, Somerset is 15th overall and second in the district.
Williamsburg will get tested this week when they begin district play with the Mountain Lions of Pineville.

Streak growing
The Corbin volleyball team won their 11th game in a row Thursday night when they pasted the Cumberland Redskins. Cumberland came to Corbin with an impressive 6-2 record, losing to Middlesboro twice, but they were no match for the Lady Redounds. Corbin won the first game 25-14 and took the second game, 25-10.
The Lady Redhounds were scheduled to play Middlesboro last night at home. The Lady Yellow Jackets had won 11 games to start the season but lost Thursday night to Clay County, 18-25, 25-7, 17-25. I was a little surprised at the loss at Middlesboro after seeing Clay County in the North Laurel Invitational. Middlesboro has a big front line that can cause a lot of trouble.
If Corbin gets past Middlesboro they will not have a big test until the regular season final against South Laurel.

What about Whitley
The Lady Colonels got off to a slow start, but Whitley County has won three of their last four. They beat Lynn Camp, North Laurel and Knox Central with their lone loss being to McCreary Central.
They are scheduled to play Clay County at home Thursday night before going to the East Kentucky Mountain Classic at Perry Central Saturday. They will get a chance to pick up some wins as they face Leslie County, Knott Central, Letcher Central and Perry Central. Letcher Central won the 14th region last year, so they should provide some tough competition.

Correction
A front page photo had the wrong cutline last week. It should have been Corey Sewell trying to get away from a Lexington Christian defender in the Redhounds win over LCA. My apologies to Corey and the Redhounds.