Soccer Action

After losing to the Madison Central Indians 7-0 to open the season the Corbin Redhounds soccer team has won three of their last five games to even their season record at 3-3. The Redhounds took fourth place in last week’s Pulaski Cup beating Garrard County and Adair County.
They lost to the Madison Southern Eagles, 4-1 (who beat Madison Central to capture the championship) in pool play and lost in the consolation game to host Pulaski County, 3-2.
Monday night the Redhounds hosted the Middlesboro Yellow Jackets to open district play and dominated the visitors in a 4–0 win.
“Middlesboro is not the quality of Pulaski County or definitely not the quality of Madison Southern or Madison Central,” said Corbin coach Armondo Cima of his team’s easy win. “That matters a little bit and playing at home, we’re a little more comfortable,” added Cima. “I think in the first half we tried to do some of the things we have talked about. I think it (win) was a combination of things.”
The Redhounds dominated the field of play, getting off 36 shots on goal compared to the Jackets nine attempts. It was an easy night for Corbin goal keeper Max Sission who had just three saves in the win.
However Middlesboro keeper Dillon Frost tried to turn back shot after shot by the Redhounds offense. It didn’t take long for Corbin to get on the scoreboard. Corbin came out firing as the Redhounds took seven shots in the first ten minutes led by senior Chase Pugh with three near hits.
The first goal came at 26:04 when Brian Motley lifted a shot over Frost and into the back of the net for a 1-0 lead. Two minutes later Mike Huff scored on a cross from —- with 23:39 left in the first half and the lead was 2-zip.
The Redhounds out shot the Jackets, 18-2 in the first half.
If the first half was tough on the visitors then the second half wasn’t any better as the ball stayed in the Middlesboro end of the field most of the 40 minutes. Less than a minute into the half, Corbin’s Zack Grinter put the ball in the net for a 3-0 lead.
Seven minutes later it was Zack Brown scoring for the Redhounds. The score started with Pugh taking a direct kick that struck a Middlesboro defender and bounced into the path of Brown who put it in for a 4-0 lead.
Cima sent in the reserves for the next 20 minutes and the younger players didn’t miss a beat but only had three shots on goal.
Some of the starters returned in the final 13 minutes to prevent the Jackets from getting on the scoreboard. During that time Corbin picked up the offensive pace once again and took nine shots on goal with Frost getting four saves.
“Tonight we played a little more simply,” said Cima. “Sometimes we try to work possession situations in a complicated manner. The more that can become our theme the more success we will have.”
“I think we are getting more used to each other,” said Cima of his young team. The Redhounds have 10 freshmen on the roster. “From that point of view we are making measured progress in that area.”
“We have a lot of good freshmen, some sophomores who are quality players as well and a couple of juniors who are really good, so we’re pretty sound,” Cima said. “It’s just a matter of playing within ourselves.”
“The quicker we can get to the ideal that we are solid players with simple skills and we do simple things we will be successful,” Cima said.
Pulaski Co. 3, Corbin 2
“We fell apart in the last 15 minutes,” said Cima. Leading 2-0 on goals by Mike Huff and Zack Grinter the Redhounds lost control of the game in the final 15 minutes.
“I think we thought we had the game in hand and maybe got a little complacent,” said Cima. “To be honest we just didn’t mark that well and they capitalized on those situations. Hopefully it was a big lesson.”
Corbin 4, Adair Co. 1
Pugh had a hat trick to lead the Redhounds to a 4-1 win over the Indians of Adair County. Pugh scored all three goals in the first half with the first coming early in the game at the 37:22 mark. He put his team ahead 2-0 with nine minutes to go in the first half then added his third goal at the 1:57 mark.
Corbin took a 4-0 lead with 31:56 left in the game on a Grinter goal.
Adair prevented the shutout when Tyler Hamm scored on a penalty kick with 8:12 left in the contest.
Lady ‘Hounds win two
The Corbin Lady Redhounds evened their season record at 3-3 with back to back wins over Oneida Baptist and Lexington Bryan Station.
Corbin downed OBI 4-2 to open the district season then rolled past Bryan Station Monday night, 3-1.
“We got the girls moving diagonally and some crosses in there early and we able to put them away,” said Corbin coach Daniel Hamblin. “As far as our game plan, we executed that in a general sense.”
The Lady Redhounds moved the ball all over the field against the Lady Defenders and took 21 shots on goal in the first half. Corbin managed to get three of those past Bryan Station goalie Brittany White.
The first came in at the 32:24 mark when Erica Clark scored on an assist by Morgan.
In the 19th minute, Wright took a corner kick and Sarah Tipton finished by finding the back of the net for a 2-0 lead with 21:11 on the clock.
Ten minutes later the Lady Redhounds struck again when Vanessa Steele broke away for a goal from the right side to put Corbin ahead 3-0.
The second half saw only one goal scored and that came when Bryan Station’s Blaze Douglas scored with 18:36 left in the game.
The Lady Redhounds slowed the pace in the second half, taking only six shots on goal as White came up with four saves. For the game, the Lady Redhounds had 27 shots to Bryan Station’s four attempts on goal.
Hamblin felt putting in some inexperience players in the last 20 minutes of the game took his team out of some of its rhythm. “I put some inexperience players in and the spacing wasn’t there in the second half. They (inexperienced players) tend to go back to those things that are grass roots soccer like herding around the ball,” he added of the second half lull.
However Hamblin said his team has improved since day one against Madison Southern. “We’re coming along,” he said. “OBI and Bryan Station are weaker teams and we knew that coming in so I just wanted to try to get the girls to get the goals in early then we could use the rest of the game to work on the things we are going to have to do against the better teams. By scoring early we can get some of the younger, inexperienced players out on the field.”
“I don’t want the girls to take these wins and get the bighead,” Hamblin said. “We’ve come so far but we have a long way to go when we start playing teams like Model, Somerset, North Laurel and South Laurel. It’s going to be a totally different game when we play those teams. We’ve got to come prepared or we are not going to be able to play with those teams unless we are playing at the top of our game.”
The Lady Redhounds will take on the Lady Patriots of Lincoln County Saturday at 12 noon in Stanford. Lincoln County had a 1-1 record at press time with games scheduled Tuesday and Thursday against Garrard and Russell County.