LEXINGTON – The strength that carried Warren Central within one game of a state championship appearance caved in the end.

The Dragons’ stubborn defense had no answer for St. Xavier’s Zach Moorman, who scored his first goal eight minutes into the match as the Tigers cruised by Warren Central 6-0 in the KHSAA boys’ soccer state semifinals Wednesday night at Lafayette High School.

Moorman earned a hat trick for the Tigers (22-3-2), who will play defending champions Daviess County in Saturday’s state final. St. Xavier took it to Warren Central (23-2) in the second half with five goals, two coming in the first two minutes of the half.

“I think when we saw the first one go in, it was like a bullet in our hearts,” Dragons senior goalkeeper Kemal Esmic said. “We all just laid down and we knew it was over after that. We realized how far we made it and after that we couldn’t do anything.

“They were the better team, they outplayed us and they wanted it more than us and they got it.”

Warren Central carried the state’s best defense into the match with just eight goals allowed all year (0.33 per game). The Tigers’ six goals were the most the Dragons had allowed in a match since 2015.

Moorman put the game away early in the second half with two goals off set pieces before Zachary Bannon’s goal off a corner kick in the 59th minute made it 4-0.

St. Xavier poured in two more goals in the final 10 minutes after Warren Central pulled its starters.

They got an early one on us and I think it was just nerves that gave it up pretty fast,” Dragons coach Aaron Ray said. “I thought we were able to take control of the game in the first half, then start of the second half they got another early goal and heads dropped and momentum kind of went downhill from there.

“We haven’t been scored on first too many times. I think we’ve been down one goal twice. Just hard to get back in the funk of things. It was weird giving up a goal that fast.”

St. Xavier, the state’s top-ranked team in the Maher rankings, pounded the Dragons early with two shots in the first eight minutes. The Tigers put the second one in the net when Case Cox worked the ball low and fed it to a wide-open Moorman for the score in the eighth minute.

The Tigers didn’t allow Warren Central any solid looks the remainder of the half and carried their 1-0 lead into halftime with a 3-2 shot advantage.

The wheels came off to start the second half.

Moorman scored on an unassisted free kick from the left wing 41 seconds into the second half. The senior secured the hat trick by connecting on Ryan Nicholls’ corner kick in the 42nd minute.

The Tigers put the nail in the coffin when Bannon finished off a corner kick from John Schrepferman in the 59th minute.

Pablo Sakaguchi made it 6-0 with four minutes left in regulation.

St. Xavier outshot the Dragons 15-2.

“We knew that their defense is really quick so it’s going to be hard to penetrate through that,” St. Xavier coach Andy Schulten said. “We tried to focus a little bit on getting around them. … We opened up that first goal in the second half that broke their backs a little bit.”

Warren Central’s magical season ends with its first appearance in the state tournament. By the skin of their teeth, the Dragons earned two shootout wins against Hopkinsville and Campbell County to reach the state semifinals. The Dragons graduate nine seniors who helped the team capture its first District 14 and Region 4 championships.

Sophomore Fahrudin Alic and junior James Khual will return after leading the team with 19 and 10 goals, respectively.

“My message to (the team) is Moss (Middle School) has a hard act to follow,” Ray said. “Warren Elementary and Lost River, y’all have a hard act to follow. There’s not going to be another team like this five years from now. They’ve got a hard act to follow.

“These guys have made history, done an excellent job and set the bar really high.”{&end}