S

The Franklin County High School boys soccer team lost to the Shelbyville Central Golden Eagles 5-1 at home Thursday in the District 6AAA championship game.

The Golden Eagles pulled ahead late in the first half, and the deficit continued to grow after halftime as Franklin County finished as the district runner-up. The loss also snapped an eight-game winning streak for Franklin County.

Franklin County head soccer coach Kent Bean said that the Golden Eagles capitalized on errors made by his team at key points in the contest.

“I think we just made a few mistakes and Shelbyville punished us for it. We just couldn’t dig ourselves out of a hole,” he said. “We’ve had a couple games this year where we’ve been able to come back from being down a goal, and tonight, we just couldn’t. Shelbyville had a good game plan.”

Bean added that the loss of sophomore center back Mason Baggett to an injury in the previous game hurt his team coming into the day.

“Mentally, I think that doesn’t help you, and it doesn’t help us on the field either. He was a solid player back there all year long and I really hate it for him and the guys,” he said. “It’s just one of those things that does happen every once in a while.”

The Golden Eagles were the first team on the board as they scored about 10 minutes into the contest to put Franklin County behind early.

Franklin County answered back about a minute later, however, as Shelbyville’s goalkeeper deflected a shot to the top of the goal box, and Israel Mendez charged in and fired a shot into the net from there for his first goal of the season to tie the score at 1-1.

The Golden Eagles would break through for another goal with about 14 minutes remaining in the first half to jump back ahead, and another Shelbyville goal came with just 27 seconds remaining in the first half off of a corner kick to double the deficit.

Franklin County trailed 3-1 at halftime.

The Golden Eagles carried their momentum into the second half as they struck for another goal just three minutes after play resumed to grow the deficit to 4-1.

A Franklin County penalty in the goal box with about 21 minutes remaining gave the Golden Eagles a penalty kick, and they converted on the attempt to effectively put the game out of reach.

Franklin County wasn’t able to find another score in the time remaining as the final deficit settled at four.

Following the conclusion of the game, Josiah Cruz, Cason Eslick, Blake Broadbent and Baggett were named to the all-district first team.

Garrison Orr, Mendez and Octavio Martinez were selected for the all-district second team.

In terms of individual awards for the district, Kevin Hernandez was named a co-MVP, Rylan Banks was recognized as the Forward of the Year, Matthew Waggoner was selected as the Defensive Player of the Year, Loui Arellano was one of four recipients of the co-Freshman of the Year award and Bean walked away with the Coach of the Year honors.

With the loss, Franklin County moved to 11-4 on the season.

The boys soccer team will next play Tuesday at The Howard School in a semifinal game for the Region 3AAA tournament. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern.