OWENSBORO – The South Warren boys’ soccer team saw its season come to an end with a 4-1 loss at Daviess County in the opening round of the state tournament Monday at Deer Park Elementary School in Owensboro.

South Warren (12-9-2) had the momentum early, but Daviess County was able to bust through against a defense that hadn’t allowed a goal in regulation or overtime in five postseason games.

“Daviess County is really good,” South Warren coach Tom Alexander said. “(Daviess County coach Doug Sandifer) is one of the best coaches in the state. When you make errors against a really well-coached team, they are going to punish you for it. We made some really uncharacteristic errors in this game.”

Daviess County (21-1-4) beat the Spartans 2-0 in the regular-season finale, but South Warren came out aggressive in the rematch. South Warren nearly scored an own goal in the eighth minute but broke through six minutes later when Kiram Mujic scored off a corner kick.

The lead was short-lived.

Nick Vincent tied the score with a goal in the 20th minute and Daviess County surged ahead right before halftime when Dax Sandifer scored off a corner kick.

“It sucks,” South Warren senior forward Dzemal Ajanovic said. “We go up 1-0. We scored an early goal and had all the momentum. To lose it that quickly, it’s not a good feeling.”

Daviess County extended the lead five minutes into the second half after South Warren keeper Aiden Peerce came out to try and clear the ball, but Ahmed Abdullahi was able to get off a looping shot that went in.

“It was another uncharacteristic error that we had,” Alexander said. “We’ve been really good about that all year. Aiden kind of got caught in no man’s land. Their forward got a touch on it and that’s what is going to happen.”

South Warren went down a man in the 53rd minute after Mujic was issued a red card for his second yellow card of the game. Daviess County added one more goal in the 68th minute to cap the scoring.

“Down a man, we figured we were going to throw numbers forward anyway,” Alexander said. “We were already throwing numbers forward when it was 2-1, so after we went down a man we decided there’s no difference in losing 2 or 3 to 1 or 8-1. We could’ve bunkered down, but we didn’t do that.

“I’m proud of the guys for fighting through everything. I’m proud of them playing all the way to the final whistle – doing anything and everything to try and get a goal.”

With the loss, the Spartans’ senior class ends a run that saw the program win back-to-back region titles for the first time in school history and three region crowns in four years.

Alexander said he was proud of the way his team came together after losing lots of experience from last year’s state runner-up squad.

“I just told the seniors that I am proud of them for stepping up,” Alexander said. “They had to step into leadership roles and, to be honest, it’s an impossible class to follow.

“This team is really young. We essentially lost 12 guys from last year’s team and for them to step up, it was nice to see.”{&end}