By Dana Harding (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Ozark — Goals were in short supply Thursday night.
Good thing Ozark only needed one of them.
The Tigers scored late in the first half on junior Tayler Martin’s penalty kick rebound to down Kickapoo 1-0 in a battle of Class 4 rivals.
Ozark head coach Tom Davidson didn’t even see what turned out to be the winning goal for his team.
“We hadn’t had a penalty kick,” Davidson said. “I honestly wasn’t sure who was going to take it. I usually don’t watch … and I didn’t. It’s just some weird thing with me.”
Martin punched a ball hard to the right side of the goal, only to be denied by a diving save from Kickapoo goalkeeper Jacob Holman.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, Holman’s save deflected back in front of the net, where a rushing Martin capitalized on the second opportunity.
“It was pretty exciting,” Martin said. “I stole the ball around midfield, and as I picked up my head to look for another pass, I saw that there wasn’t really anyone; everyone was double-marked. As I beat the first guy, there was another guy that came in and tackled me from behind.”
While Davidson couldn’t watch the penalty kick, itself, Martin’s play leading up to it went exactly as planned.
“[Martin] made a great play just getting the penalty kick,” Davidson said. “Just took the corner and did what he was supposed to do. I always talk to them about once you get that last corner there, just drive it at the goal, because the only thing they can really do is take you down from behind.”
Following a first half in which his keeper spent a majority of the time under duress, Kickapoo head coach Phil Hodge praised his senior leader’s performance.
“Jacob’s the heartbeat of our team,” Hodge said. “He draws respect from his coaches and teammates, and he’s a great leader for us … all the time. Jacob made a heck of a play to keep us in the game. The advantage is going to the shooter, so you’re not sure if he’s going to save it. He saves it, then we get stuck maybe being a little reactive instead of proactive.”
Down a goal at the half, a determined Kickapoo team came out with renewed aggression and put Ozark on its heels a bit. The momentum shift was something Davidson knew was coming and warned his team about during the break.
“We talked to our kids at halftime about this,” Davidson said. “You have to go out and dictate what’s going to go on in the second half. They’re going to come out hard because they’re down one, and they’ve got to get a goal. They came out, and we just really never recovered.”
While the Chiefs captured momentum and produced plenty of scoring opportunities in the second half, the end result on the scoreboard was the same.
After the game, Hodge looked for positives to build around his young team moving forward.
“If we played with that intensity, that heart, and played for each other like we did in that second half, maybe it’s a different story,” Hodge said. “In the same breath, we maybe waited a little t0o late to change our formation. Each game out, we get to learn a little bit about our team and ourselves. Tonight, we learned a lot.”
After a quick turnaround, Ozark (4-1) faces off against Green Ridge in the Parkview Tournament Friday, Sept. 8, while Kickapoo (5-4) travels to Parkview on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
Varsity Final: Ozark – 1, Kickapoo – 0
First-half scoring
Ozark 31:16 Taylor Martin (unassisted)
