The postseason begins tonight for both the Seymour boys and girls soccer teams with each looking to regain sectional glory.
Fortunately, for the girls, they get to stay home while they battle for their first sectional trophy since 1997.
They’ve got a great first matchup against Hoosier Hills Conference rival Bedford North Lawrence today at 5 p.m. with the winner getting the victor from the Floyd Central and New Albany contest that follows.
In September, the Owls rattled off one of their most lopsided wins of the season against the Stars, 6-1, with sophomore striker Lillie Wessel firing off two goals and an assist.
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Five different Owls scored in the contest. In addition to Wessel’s brace, the Owls also got goals from Bailey Lykins, Mia Schrader, Ellie Cornn and Alyssa Perry.
It’d be easy for the Owls to overlook the Stars and ahead to either the Highlanders or Bulldogs, but coach Greg Musser understands they need to take a game-by-game approach if they want to be hoisting the trophy at the end.
"We’ve come up against BNL before and had a nice game against them," Musser said. "We saw what happened though last year with the boys’ team and possibly overlooking an opponent. So, we don’t really want to do that and we learned that lesson from last year.
"It doesn’t really matter how things shake out for us, we’ve got to be ready to rock and roll, and I think our girls will be."
Going back to their first meeting, the only thing Musser was despondent about their win was a late goal conceded to Jennifer Ramirez, the Stars’ leading scorer.
She’ll be the focal point for the Owls tonight as she looks to build on her 12 goals scored this season. Star junior Makenna Moore is also a threat for BNL.
For the boys, they’ll make the trip down to Floyd Central and face off against HHC champion Columbus East in tonight’s second match.
The Owls have been on a bit of an upward trend after winning two of their last three games. They’ll need to hope it continues against an Olympians’ side yet to drop a game this season.
Columbus East blanked Seymour, 4-0, in early September, but a month has passed since they last met and the Owls have shown tremendous improvement according to coach Matt Dennis.
When the draw was released, his players weren’t at all shy about how they felt about getting an early shot at the Olympians.
"The very first comment I got from a player was, ‘yes, rematch,’" Dennis said. "The boys are positive about it and they think this is great to get a chance at somebody we lost to earlier in the season.
"We’ll do our best to go out there and earn a little vindication."
East had three different goal scorers in the earlier meeting with junior Logan Cline’s brace leading the way.
Cline is just the third-leading goal scorer for the Olympians with nine this year. Chris Quisenberry and Eric Stiles have scored double digit goals this year.
Should the Owls prove victorious, they’ll face off against the winner of New Albany and Jeffersonville, which takes place before tonight’s Seymour and Columbus East game.
The Seymour boys soccer team has not won a sectional title since 2009.