By Sam McClanahan
The Pendleton County Wildcats soccer team hosted Covington Holmes on September 24 in their home finale and came away with a hard-fought 2-1 victory. In doing so, the program reached the nine win mark for the first time in five years.
The Wildcats went ahead 1-0 after Dawson Nichols netted a goal 16 minutes into the first half. Nine minutes later, Nichols would strike again as he connected on his second goal (21st overall) to give his squad a 2-0 advantage. That score would hold throughout the duration of the first half.
In the second half, Holmes stepped up their offensive aggression and would score a goal 10 minutes into the half. From there, the rest of the contest with a high degree of intensity and physicality. Midway through the half, Wildcat goalkeeper Adam Beebe suffered a knee injury trying to deny a scoring attempt and was forced to exit the game. The Holmes player involved in the play received a red card and was ejected from the game which also forced Holmes to play one man down for the rest of the game. Hunter Keeton came on in relief of Beebe at goalkeeper and recorded multiple saves to help Pendleton County preserve the win.
"We showed a lot of toughness tonight and this win shows a lot of how far we've come since early in the season," said Wildcats head coach Amber Nichols. "There's still some things on our end that we need to correct and clean up but I do like where we're going heading into districts "
This week, the Wildcats will wrap up regular season play as they travel to face Reading (OH) and venture south to take on Paris. The team will face Mason County on October 8 in the district tournament which will be held at Mason County High School.