Going into halftime of the Area playoffs, the boys soccer team was dominating Lucas Lovejoy, 3-0. Despite driving almost five hours to Lucas Lovejoy High School for the game, nothing fazed the Panthers as they finished with a 4-0 shutout to advance to the third round of the playoffs.
“The boys were locked in,” coach Christian Boehm said. “We had a long trip. We had to go to a hostile environment. And though we didn’t waste any time putting our game plan into motion, it paid off in the first half. We went up 3-0.”
Junior Grant Jimerson scored two goals, while senior Finn Bruce and sophomore Ethan Segura each contributed one goal.
“After the goals, what I really like that about our team is we all get super excited and we all love scoring,” said Jonny West, who had two assists. “Even if we’re like down 4-0, we all run to each other and we’re all just having so much fun.”
Bruce headed the ball into the goal for the early 1-0 lead. The goal that capped off scoring in the second half was a long ball to Segura from Evan Jimerson. Segura took one touch then shot through the keeper’s legs and into the goal.
“Immediately after halftime, we negated their halftime speech by scoring within three minutes,” Boehm said. “It was clinical.”
The boys now travel to Lufkin Hudson High School to face the Longview Lobos (21-4 overall, 14-0 district) at 7 p.m. Tuesday night. The Lobos, who are on a 16-game winning streak, knocked the Panthers out of the first round of the playoffs last year with a narrow 2-1 victory.
But the Panthers (19-2-2 overall, 7-1-2 district) are a much different team with a more potent offense this season. Kingwood Park has scored 20 goals in its last five games and allowed opponents to score only three.
Longview, which has not allowed a goal since Feb. 20, will try to silence the Panthers’ offense.
“We’re going to have a challenge in front of us to see how we can break down that defense with their goalkeeper,” Boehm said. “On the other hand, they haven’t seen any attack like we have. We’re just going to have to see how we can hold up defensively against their offense, which is also really good, and hopefully implement a game plan that can help us score more goals.”
