Early goals send Ryle to state final

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The 1-2 punch of strikers senior Cole Willoughby and junior Tyrus Sciarra has scored clutch goals all season for Ryle.

That trend continued on Wednesday, as both found the net in the first 20 minutes of the Raiders’ state semifinal at Paul Dunbar in a 3-0 win over Henderson County.

Ryle (22-2-3) advances to play Louisville St. Xavier, which won 2-0 over Lexington Henry Clay in the other semifinal, at 5 p.m. on Saturday. No Northern Kentucky team has even won a state title, and none have advanced to the championship game since Highlands in 2008.

“They play so well with each other that it’s unbelievable,” Ryle coach Stephen Collins said. “They just seem to know where the other is and then they can make those passes and connect all the time.”

The pair has netted 48 of Ryle’s 90 goals this season, 53 percent of the team’s total offensive output.

“The chemistry has definitely been really good and recently we’ve stepped up more,” Sciarra said. “Now that we know we have to score a couple and we can count on our defense no matter what, we always go out fast and hard and me and Cole can put a couple in.”

Just 12:03 into the first half, Willoughby drove the net, and when he tried to dribble around a defender, the ball was deflected to Sciarra, who beat Henderson County senior goalkeeper Logan Spencer.

A loose ball in the goal box found Willoughby 6:30 later, and he left-footed it into the bottom left corner of the net to make it 2-0.

Neither goal was the result of a set play, but hard work allowed Ryle's players to position themselves to clean up the loose balls in front of the net.

“That’s what most of our goals have been all year,” Collins said. “We attack the corners and then cross it in the middle, and we’ve just been kind of one of those bulldog teams where we work hard and then follow everything.”

It was the 29th goal of the season for Sciarra, and No. 19 for Willoughby.

Meanwhile, the Raiders’ defense was relentless. Henderson County put just one shot on goal in the first half, and that was on a long ball played into the box that was grabbed cleanly by senior goalkeeper Chris Froschauer.

Froschauer turned aside two more shots after the break to give him three saves for the match as the Raiders recorded their 14th shutout of the season and their fifth in seven postseason contests.

But Willoughby was not done. His lateral pass at the top of the box found junior midfielder Mitchell See, who buried a shot in the bottom left corner to make it 3-0 five minutes into the second half to seal Ryle's second-ever berth in the state final.

Willoughby finished with a goal and two assists after recording three goals vs. Russell in the opening round of the state tournament and a goal and an assist against Montgomery County in the quarterfinal.

“It’s surreal for sure,” Willoughby said. “It’s something special – what this team’s got – and hopefully on Saturday we can make it even more special with a state title.”

The fast start has been the norm for the Raiders in the state tournament. Ryle has scored two goals in the first 21 minutes of each of its three state matches.

“That’s what we’ve been doing since the playoffs have started, we’ve talked to our kids about scoring early,” Collins said. “We’ve built this team with defense, and we felt that if we could get two goals that this game was ours. As it turned out we were able to get three and our defense held strong most of the game.”

With his recent hot streak, Willoughby now has 21 assists to go with his 19 goals. His assist in Ryle’s last game was also on a Sciarra goal.

“Our team chemistry has been good,” Willoughby said. “(Sciarra and I) work well together, he finishes mine – he had a goal…and I had a goal and two assists. It doesn’t matter how it plays out, we just want to get out with a win.”

HALFTIME: 2-0. GOALS: R—Willoughby, Sciarra, See. SHUTOUT: Froschauer (3 saves). RECORDS: Ryle 23-2-3, Henderson County 22-4-1.