Siegel clips WCHS in 7-AAA opening round

MURFREESBORO ? The Pioneer soccer season came to an end in the first round of the District 7-AAA championship Monday night, as Warren County made an early exit with a narrow 2-1 loss to Siegel.

Playing on the Stars? home field, the Pioneers, who entered the tournament as a No. 5 seed, were limited to just three shots during Monday?s match, finding the back of the net for a 1-0 lead after just over 10 minutes had elapsed in the game.

Tony Garibaldi assisted on the goal, chipping a diagonal shot over the Stars? defenders to find Cody Cowens, who settled the pass off his chest before sending a high shot over the Siegel keeper for an early Pioneer lead.

?That was a real nice goal,? Pioneer coach Keith Hamilton said of Cowens? shot. ?He was real patient and waited for the keeper to commit, and chipped it over him to put us out on top.?

Just moments later, however, Cowens was taken out of the game by a Siegel defender, who slid in hard and injured Cowens with his cleats.

?We had a lead, but just a few minutes go by and there?s my best offensive person is sitting on the bench, unable to go,? Hamilton said, ?so losing him really hurt our offense.?

Later in the game, one of the Pioneers? defenders was also taken down from behind, and as he and the Siegel player who was charged with a foul on the play got up off the ground, Warren County?s player was red-carded for retaliating for the foul, meaning the Pioneers had to play the rest of the game at an 11-on-10 disadvantage.

?They gave us the foul, with no card to it, but when our guy retaliates he gets the red card and we have to play down after that, with a defensive starter and an offensive starter out of the game and with 10 guys to their 11,? Hamilton said. ?So that really gave Siegel an advantage.?

The Stars tied the game 21 minutes into the first half, on a long shot from Larpin Buchaeron, which glanced off Pioneer keeper Tucker Chastain?s hands and into the net.

Despite being a man down, the Pioneers tried their best to keep Siegel out of the attack zone in the second half, but allowed another long goal from Weston LeDoux which proved to be the game-winner.

?Their first shot was kind of a prayer from 30 yards out, and I thought for sure we were going to get it,? Hamilton said, ?but the ball went over Tucker?s head and into the goal.

?The second goal came from same situation: The guy was bout 30 yards out, and Saul Simpson was trying to get into position to stop the shot, but the ball hit him in the back and went into the side of the net. So both of their goals were definitely preventable, it was just a matter of them being fortunate, where we weren?t.?

The win allowed Siegel to move on to a second-round matchup against Riverdale Tuesday night. The match was to be played at Cookeville High School.

The loss was the second one-goal decision of the year for the Pioneers and Stars, with Siegel winning their regular season contest by a 1-0 final at WCHS in mid-March.

Hamilton noted that Warren County?s season, ended with a 6-7-2 record, suffered a turn for the worst with a loss at Lebanon in early April from which the Pioneers were never truly able to rebound. At 5-1-1 heading into the Lebanon match, Warren County went 1-5-1 following that 1-0 loss.

?It?s really a shame,? he said. ?Sometimes you look at a season and see one game that really makes or breaks your season. The game at Lebanon was really that case. We were riding high, and went up there that night had five guys get injured, sending two to the emergency room, and we never recovered after that.?