Panthers shut out Menifee

The Fleming County Panthers soccer team hosted the Menifee County Wildcats at Panther Field Thursday night.

Last season the Panthers saw the Wildcats twice, once in the regular season and once again in the first round of the 61st district tournament. Both times Fleming County came out on top of Menifee, with a 2-1 win in early September, and a 1-0 shutout in early October.

This season, the Panthers were looking to continue that trend, and fought hard to keep the Wildcats’ offense from scoring.

“We feel good, we we’re a little tired, this was our third game this week. You can see we get a little tired, we tried to rotate subs in but, three hard competitive games before, we had Boyd County on Tuesday and then we come straight into a district seeding game on Thursday, but we did great. Worked out some of our kinks in the first half and I think the second half showed.” said Panthers assistant coach, Tim Smith.

Both teams battled hard throughout the first half, neither allowing their opponent to score. Heading into the beginning of the second half, Fleming County came out strong and was finally able to get past the Menifee County defense, leading 1-0 over the Wildcats early in the second forty minutes of play.

Fleming County continued to hold off the Wildcats’ offense throughout the second half, with a strong defense holding Menifee County back.

“That’s just a testament to the team. They start putting in the work early. All summer long they’re out here putting the work in. We’ve got a good core group of varsity players. I think this is the most high school varsity players we’ve had in a long time, most of those kids have played together since they were four or five years old, so the chemistry is there we’ve just gotta work toward building throughout the season and getting better.” said coach Smith.

Late in the second half, the Panthers brought in another goal, scored by senior TJ Smith. Fleming County now led 2-0 over the Wildcats, and were hoping to hold strong throughout the remainder of the contest.

“Our players, you could see, they started working those passes and movements and controlling the ball a lot more instead of just wild touches and I think the first half we took probably seven shots from probably thirty yards out, and they all kept going over. Second half we honed it in, zeroed it in and put two in the goal.” said coach Smith.

With another win in the books for the 2024 Fleming County Panthers, the team now gears up for their next contest against the Ashland Tomcats coming up this Tuesday at Panther Field at 6:30 p.m.