Somerset —
The Southwestern Warriors have made a living this week by having a couple ‘Senior Moments’.
Three days removed from an impressive 8-1 victory over Clinton County on Southwestern’s ‘Senior Night’ on Monday, Sean McBride’s club traveled across town last night to PC Field to square off against the Pulaski County Maroons on PC’s ‘Senior Night’.
On a night when the Maroons said good-bye to eight seniors, it was a Southwestern senior — Kagan Brainard — that stole the show.
Brainard notched a hat trick on Thursday evening, scoring all three of his team’s goals, enabling the Warriors to end the regular season with a 12-5-3 record with a hard-fought, 3-1 victory over Pulaski County.
“I thought this was a great win for us, because I thought both teams simply played their butts off tonight,” stated a very happy coach McBride after the contest.
“The score is really not indicative of how close this game was, because we scored right at the end,” continued the Warriors coach. “They (Pulaski County) was definitely pressuring us, and both teams just played their butts off. It was a good finish, and as I said the other night, this is a much different PC team than the one we played to start the season, I promise you Pulaski County will be a factor in the post season.”
One person that was a major factor in last night’s game was a Southwestern senior, Kagan Brainard.
Brainard began his way to the hat trick by putting the Warriors on top 1-0 with just 3:41 left in the opening half of play.
That lead however would not last long.
With only :47 remaining in the first half, PC’s Jose Delgado tallied a score knotting this one up at 1-1 heading into the intermission.
In the second half, the Maroons had several opportunities to cash in for a go-ahead score, but it was a night when Pulaski County just couldn’t get its shots into the net.
“I tried to stay calm throughout, because I knew if we just kept doing our thing that eventually we would break through,” stated Pulaski County head coach Casey Inabnitt, after his team finished the regular season with a 9-7 record.
“Sometimes however it just doesn’t work out like that and tonight was one of those nights,” added the PC coach. “When we gave up the goal late to fall behind 2-1, that really put us under a lot of pressure to score, so we started getting forward, and that eventually led to us giving up another goal.”
With the score knotted up at 1-1 for much of the second half, the Maroons had three or four point-blank shots to nail down a lead, but Southwestern’s keeper — Jordan Jones — was up to the task of stopping those shots for much of the evening.
Finally, with only 12:43 left in the game, Brainard scored off a rebound in front of the net, giving the Warriors a 2-1 advantage — a lead Southwestern would never relinquish.
With just over two minutes remaining in the game, Brainard completed his hat trick with his third tally of the night giving the Warriors a 3-1 victory, and a regular season that saw McBride’s club win 12 games — a big-time improvement from last season’s 5-14-1 record.
“We’ve had a great season this year, and we want it to continue starting next week with the district tournament,” McBride remarked.
“We’ve had kids out there that have played a lot of minutes for us over the last two to three seasons, so we should have had a great season,” pointed out the Southwestern coach. “Last year, we competed in all of the games, but we couldn’t score — that was our biggest issue. This season offensively, we’ve just gotten so much better.”
Meanwhile for the Maroons, on a night when PC honored eight seniors — Justin Tilley, Daniel Pitman, Austin Byrd, Zach Atwell, Greg Avina, Brandon Labelle, Gerek Patrick, and Alex Wilson — Inabnitt’s club came up on the short end of the scoreboard to the Warriors, but that didn’t dampen Inabnitt’s thoughts one bit on describing the importance of this year’s senior class.
The PC coach pointed out after the loss that a lot of his program’s success since he took over as the Maroons head coach three years ago was due in large part to a very talented senior class.
“A lot of these kids have played some very big minutes for me ever since I got here,” stated Inabnitt.
“Even though I haven’t been with them for their entire high school careers, they mean a lot to me and they helped make me look a little better in some instances that I probably should have looked.”
Both the Warriors and Maroons will kick off play in district tournament action beginning next week.
On Monday night at 7:30 p.m., the Warriors will host Monticello in the championship game of the Boy’s 48th District Soccer Tournament.
On Tuesday night at PC Field, the Maroons will host arch-rival Somerset at 6:30 p.m. in the championship game of the Boy’s 47th District Soccer Tournament.
Local Sports
Related Photos
-
Pulaski County High School senior Austin Byrd (left) and Southwestern High School senior Devon Norton (center) fight for a one-on-one header in the Warriors’ 3-1 win over the Maroons. Steve Cornelius Photo
Warriors, Brainard down Pulaski 3-1
- Local Sports
-
-
Somerset downs Pulaski to claim title
For the last four years Somerset High School and Pulaski County High School have battled it out for the 47th District baseball championship . Counting Tuesday night, three out of the four years the Briar Jumpers have brought back the gold. Somerset defeated the Maroons 7-4.
Of their 7 runs scored, the Briar Jumpers tallied 5 of those runs off homers. Somerset freshman Logan Ramsey hit a three-run homer in the first inning and sophomore Chandler Purcell hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning. -
Warriors blast past Wayne Co., 14-9
When Southwestern is hitting the ball solid, they are a very dangerous baseball team.
Wayne County received a first-hand look at just how much damage the Southwestern bats can do on Tuesday evening at Warrior Stadium, as the homestanding Warriors tallied 14 runs on 16 hits in a 14-9 victory over the Cardinals in the 48th District Baseball Championship game. -
Lorman, Henderlight keep Pulaski alive
Facing a four-run deficit and down to their last three outs, elimination looked inevitable for the Pulaski County High School baseball team on Monday night in the opening round of the 47th District Baseball Tournament at Charlie Taylor Field.
But a Pulaski last-inning rally capped off by a Henry Lorman bases-loaded clearing double off the left field wall and a Chris Henderlight walk-off RBI base hit propelled the Maroons to a 7-6 comeback win over Rockcastle County High School. -
Warriors down Monticello, 11-1
It takes five wins to make it to the Forcht Bank/KHSAA Baseball State Tournament.
The Southwestern Warriors are one-fifth of the way there now, as they took down Monticello in the first round of the 48th District Baseball Tournament on Monday night at Warrior Stadium. With the five-inning, 11-1 victory over the Trojans, the Warriors advanced to the championship game and next week’s regional tournament.
Alex Eaton’s ball club did exactly what they needed to do to make it back to the regional tournament once again. The third-year Southwestern coach is hoping that his squad can come away with the program’s first regional title since 2004. -
Lady Warriors advance to finals; looking for 8th straight district title
So far in the 2013 high school softball season, McCreary Central has had their way with Southwestern in their two regular season match-ups.
The Southwestern Lady Warriors will get a chance to get a little revenge against McCreary Central, as the two teams will meet up in the 48th District Softball Championship. -
Somerset cruises to 15-1 win over Rebels
After a slow start in the first two innings, the Briar Jumpers put it all together with a 10-run third inning en route to a 15-1 (5 inning) win over Casey County High School in the first round of the 47th District Baseball Tournament at Charlie Taylor Field.
The Rebels scored in their very first at-bats, and the Jumpers countered with a three runs of their own in the bottom half of the first after Jumpers’ junior Charlie Dishman blasted a three-run homer to left field to plate Jacob Pelston and Addison Thompson. -
Mills, Cheuvront, Goldson win state titles
Local track and field athletes turned in one of the all-time best efforts at the state level in Saturday’s Class A and Class AAA Kentucky High School Athletic Association State Track and Field Championships at the University of Louisville’s Owsley Frazier Cardinal Park.
Somerset High School garnered two state crowns in the Class A state meet, as junior Cam Cheuvront won the 100-meter dash and sophomore Maranda Mills won her second consecutive triple jump state crown.
Later in the day in the Class AAA state meet, Pulaski County High School junior Jimmy Goldson ran away with the 800-meter state title. -
Sammy Jo Bullock places 7th in nation
Shopville Elementary fifth-grader Sammy Jo Bullock fired a 284 in the National Archery in Schools National Championships to place seventh in the girls elementary division. Bullock, who peirced the center circle 16 times, was third n the nation among her fellow fifth-graders.
-
Pulaski downs Corbin on Senior Night
On Tuesday afternoon at PC Field, the Pulaski County Maroon baseball team bid farewell to Taylor Gover, Eric Jones, Dustin Vaught, Henry Lorman, Tyler Wesley, and Tyler Hail on senior night before Danny Masten’s club took on a Corbin team that had earned a shutout victory over PC earlier in the year.
On Tuesday however, it was the Maroons that would not be denied on senior night, and it was those seniors that lead the way for Masten and company.
Taylor Gover notched two doubles and drove in a career-best six RBI in the game, while fellow senior Henry Lorman hit the first homerun of his varsity career and drove in three more runs. -
Somerset seniors help down Warriors, 3-1
Prior to their cross-town match-up with Southwestern, Somerset seniors Parth Patel and Heath Ehrsam were honored for their years of hard work with Senior Night festivities.
Patel and Ehrsam continued to shine on their special night at the ballpark, as the pair of Briar Jumper seniors played a pivotal role in Somerset’s 3-1 victory over the Warriors last night at Charlie Taylor Field. - More Local Sports Headlines
-
