The Cougars were coming off the best stretch of games in their history. After an 0-1-1 start to the year, they had Cougars reeled off three straight wins and played one of their best games ever in a 4-3 loss to five-time district champion Franklin-Simpson.
The Cougars had won 4-3 over Union County, 4-1 over Butler County and had routed Russellville 6-1 before the Franklin-Simpson game.
Against South the Cougars seemed like they were taking up where they left off with excellent scoring chances in the opening minutes. In the fourth minute of play, sophomore Christian Higdon had a shot stopped by Suns' goalie Nathan Alverson, but Alverson failed to control the ball. The rebound went right to sophomore Steven Jones, but Alverson was able to stop Jones' point-blank shot and the ball was cleared away.
On the ensuing corner-kick, Doug Fleener got a shot on goal, but it sailed high. In the 12th minute, Higdon had another shot sail high, and in the 16th minute, junior Chris Stewart had a shot blast off the crossbar.
Jacob Boone had another golden opportunity in the 17th minute, grabbing a rebound of a shot and putting it back on the goal, but Alverson again came up with a save.
All those missed opportunities came back to haunt the Cougars in the 33rd minute of play as South's Kelsey Hurt took a long pass-ahead behind the Cougar defense and beat goal-keeper J. T. Burns for first goal of the game. The score at the half was 1-0.
The Cougars came out applying pressure on South's defense right away as the second half began. Stewart had a shot right in front of the goal blocked by Alverson in the 43rd minute. Jones had a shot sail high in the 50th minute. A minute later, Stewart had a left-footed attempt stopped and in the 53rd minute Fleener had a shot stopped by Alverson.
But all that offensive pressure finally paid off in the 56th minute as Stewart got one past Alverson to tie things at 1-1.
The Suns then began to turn things around. All the pressure that the Cougars had been applying disappeared and the Suns took over. In the 65th minute a bounding ball got behind two Cougar defenders and Shabusne Williams took it in to score the go-ahead goal.
Grayson County was guilty of a foul inside the penalty box, giving the Suns a penalty kick in the 67th minute, but Shawn Wagoner's shot was wide of the net.
Three minutes later, Hurt took a nice pass from Chase Burd and beat Burns for his second goal of the game to make it 3-1.
With just 10 minutes left in the game, that sent the Cougars into scramble mode, but they were unable to put anything together and the Suns went home with their victory.
The Cougars (3-3-1) will be back in action on Thursday, September 6 when they travel to Mount Washington to take on the Bullitt East Chargers (1-4-1). JV action begins at 5 p.m. with the varsity tilt to follow.
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