After four straight years of Region Titles and Final Four finishes, there was plenty of pressure for the Banshees to repeat and an overanxious Region couldn’t wait to get their hands on them for a “Get even Year.” That wasn’t going to be easy as it turned out. Rossoll and warned that despite the senior gradautions of the previous seasons, this wasn’t a squad that was simply going to go away as they still had plenty of scoring back and even Sparks had warned that offensively, they would be very dangerous. The Banshees went through an entire 20-game regular season schedule winning 13 with only 7-losses. The offense, which was structured around different players scored 103-goals and allowed just 37. Baeli Young had emerged as a lethal attacker scoring 36-goals, while Ginny Spalding added 27-goals / 27-assists. Kaelyn Walker had 20-goals and Buckley Sparks tossed in 19 / 13-assists. The defense led by Mikiah Livers-Bryant, Anna O’Bryan, Ella Blair, Laura DeBold and Claire Osborne stepped up and kept opposing strikers in check and goalkeeper Bella Russell, who had missed the entire previous season with an injury was back and playing lights out at that position. Everything seemed to be going well as the Banshees still dominated the Region except for one team. Bardstown had waited four years to get back at their district nemesis and with those two nightmares (Proctor and Sparks) gone, he couldn’t wait to match up with them with his Golden Girls of Emma Livingston and Whitney Rogers. In three games (counting the District Final), the Lady Tigers outscored them 11-5 and beat them 4-0, 4-3 OT and 3-2 Double OT. It was quite obvious that Martin Bodkin had learned his lessons well and Livingston was having a ball against the New-Look Bethlehem team. Still, Rossoll wasn’t completely disappointed as he felt like they were making progress from the 4-0 embarassment they suffered in their first meeting back in August and had showed progress at least getting the ball in the net in two other occasions. They were playing with them, but simply couldn’t get that CLUTCH goal when they needed it. When Bardstown won back in August against the Banshees, they celebrated after ending four straight years of a drought against them and it also snapped a Region unbeaten streak by Bethlehem. Even with those disappointments, the Banshees still felt like they were the class of the Region and once the Tournament started at Central Hardin, Bethlehem disposed of Marion County (10-0) and Elizabethtown (3-1) in the Semi-finals. The win over the Lady Panthers helped extend their streak over them by four straight and put them in the Region Championship game again for the fifth straight year. Bethlehem’s hopes of extending the streak rose when they watched Central Hardin knock off Bardstown in a shoot out in the first game of the semi-final. With the Lady Tigers gone, only Central Hardin stood in their way.
For the Banshees, it would be a great opportunity to prove that they were still the class of the area and end the discussion of “Life After the Fab Five.” The following day, both teams were pumped. The Lady Bruins had a new head coach and a new attitude behind senior Brittany Music’s 31-goals and she showed the Banshees and the home crowd that she wasn’t ready to bow down to a team which had beaten them the last two times they faced in the Region Tourney.
About ten minutes in the game, Music took off on a run out and powered a high arcing shot over Russell in the right corner for a 1-0 lead. It may have seen lucky, but for Music it was divine and it wouldn’t be the last shot she took at the Banshee zone. Meanwhile, first year Lady Bruin coach Chris Wilk inserted an extra defender to confuse and slow Young and Spalding on the offensive end and for much of the game it worked. Young took plenty of shots at the goal in the first half, but came up empty. Frustration started to set in, but Music’s early bit of magic may have been her curtain call as Rossell countered with DeBold marking her and along with defenders to clog the lanes preventing her from finding any openings, the Central Hardin offense stopped.
Still, the Banshees couldn’t win if they couldn’t score. That was about to change.
Finally in the second half, the Banshees finally broke through as Young saw an opening and shot one past goalkeeper Olivia Fogle to tie things up. Hopes rose as the Banshee sideline cheered and with the game tied just five minutes later, Young was at it again. With 12:32 remaining, Spalding redirected a kick back to Young, who smacked it in the left corner for the goal that put the Banshees up 2-1. It looked like the game was finished as Bethlehem now had the lead and controlled the ball as well. The Lady Bruins looked stunned as they continued to struggle with the Bethlehem defensive zone and it looked like they and the 2019 season for them was history.
It would take some crazy, unexplainable once-in-a-lifetime event to change that. Unfortunately for Bethlehem, the Banshees and the fans that traveled for every game from Bardstown that was about to happen in a thunderous way.
With 5:00 left, Music had been frustrated after her early goal as Bethlehem defenders constantly disrupted her running lanes and made her life difficult. She had been marked and bloodied and forced to leave the game several times from the beating her tiny frame and taken as the game progressed. After making another save, Russell dropped the ball at her feet and attempted to kick the ball deep to her offense, but Music, instead of dropping back chose to charged and the kick deflected off her hip and spin crazily towards the goal. Before anyone on the field realized what had happened, the tiny forward was able to beat everyone to the ball and redirect it into the net for the game tying goal. To this day, no one is quite sure why Music chose to charge instead of setting back on the offensive end. Afterwards, she mentioned it was more instinctive than an educated guess. Whatever the reason, her miracle goal changed the entire complexion of the game. After neither team was able to score in regulation, the game slipped into overtime. The Banshees still seemed stunned from the events, but defensively they never quit as they kept the first overtime scoreless and did the same thing during much of the second OT as it appeared the game would drift into a shootout. What perfect irony. The Banshee’s region reign began with a shootout against Elizabethtown in 2015. To extend it would be perfect.
Or it seemed.
That’s when Music took over again.
Just minutes away from playing her last action as a senior forward for the Lady Bruins, Music took a pass and sped towards the goal again. For much of the game since her early runout, Rossoll’s defensive zones had kept her under control, but this time, she finally escaped her tomentor and took off. With two defenders on either side of her, Music had a choice: either redirect her runout and avoid her escorts thus passing up a game winning shot or take one under pressure with Russell standing ten yards in front of her ready to atone for the second half mishap.
Music never got a chance to make that decision as she appeared to be bumped and went down. The contact drew a flagrant foul and in a game where there was plenty of contact on both ends, this one turned out to be a game changer. Both sides saw the irony as the Lady Bruins let out a sigh of relief and the Banshees groaned.
With a penalty kick forth coming, Wilk sent Halie Panter on to the field. Panter was one of the shooters in the Bardstown semi-final game. Panter was also a freshman about to kick in a win-or-go-home situation. In a shootout, you can miss your turn and the next shooter can save the team. In this situation , it was all on her. Afterwards, Panter expressed a little nervousness when she asked coach “I don’t know if I want to do this. Do you trust me?” He said “Sure I do.”
Ironically, Carly Beam was nervously watching the game transpire from the sideline. Her mind had to be drifting back to 2015 when freshman Sparks and Proctor were taking their turns during the deciding shootout against E-Town when all this first started and had to be wondering if history was about to repeat itself or rewrite it.
With an entire blanket of silence enveloping the soccer field, Panter approached the ball. Stopped. Then took several steps back then froze awaiting the signal. The whistle went off and she took two steps forward and buried her right foot into it and sent the ball airbourne towards the goal. Russell stood frozen as it sailed twelve feet away from her into the right corner of the net for victory.
Just minutes away from the brink of extinction, the Lady Bruins celebrated their first trip back to semi-state since 2011.
The Banshees knew that the streak had finally came to an end. Afterwards, the girls accepted their trophy and posed for pictures especially the seniors. Yet, like the losing team, they sleepwalked through the proceedings and quietly and unnoticed left the field to the team bus.
Like two of the last three Bardstown games, this Banshee team always fought hard and stayed close, but simply couldn’t find the winning pressure packed shot in the end. Somehow Brittany Music played a part in all three scores for Central Hardin, while Baeli Young matched her in the first two, but simply ran out of time to find a way to pull this one out.
In some ways, this was the only way the streak could possibly end. The only way it should end. By some crazy, odd circumstance and just as quickly as it came, it ended as well.
It’s still unclear where this will carry the team next season. Rossoll has plenty of confidence that the Banshees will be okay next season even without Young, Sparks, Osborne, Walker, Livers-Bryant, Mudd and Guthrie. They lose eight seniors in all, but they do return their entire defense other than Livers-Bryant. Russell showed everyone that a season lost through injury couldn’t slow her down. Also, Spalding will be back and Rossoll is very impressed with his up and coming JV squad, so only time will tell if this is the beginning of something great again or a sign of the times as many teams go through rebuilding years.
Bill Parcells put it best when he said “The Circus doesn’t stay in town forever.”
Maybe not, but it can still come back next Fall, Right?
