The Tullahoma High School boys’ soccer team stamped a spot in the regional tournament with a second-place finish in the District 8-AA Tournament. It is the first time since 2017 that the Wildcats have placed as runners-up.

Lawrence County

The Wildcats, to advance to their eventual secondplace finish, took on Lawrence County High School in the district semi-finals. THS won this matchup 1-1 in a tightly contested match that ended in a penalty kick shootout.

Tullahoma and Lawrence went scoreless through the whole first half, and midway through the second half. They each had promising attacks that faded often in the final third of each other’s defense. With just over 19 minutes left in the second half at 0-0, junior for THS, Jayden Sarabia, was able to break through Lawrence’s backline defense. The recently named district midfielder of the year, Sarabia, jetted in and around Lawrence’s defense with his dribbling skills before lasering a pass to junior Gage Allen near the left post. The well-placed pass from Sarabia allowed Allen to get a foot on it, despite being marked well by another Lawrence defender. Allen’s shot went into the top-left corner of Lawrence County’s net, giving THS a 1-0 lead.

The equalizer for Lawrence to make the score 1-1 came with just under three minutes left. They generated a free kick and opted to bring their goalkeeper, senior Bradley Hoffman, up to take it. He hit a shot that skipped across the grass and found the back of Tullahoma’s net. The shot path that Hoffman took caught Tullahoma’s wall of defenders off guard. The ball went under their feet, as they jumped, thinking that his shot was going to go through the air.

Both teams went scoreless in two shortened extra halves of overtime ball. Though with one second left, Tullahoma had a PK in the second half of extra time. Allen took it and hit a wellplaced shot to the right side of Lawrence’s goal, but Hoffman, who had been unbelievable all night, continued to be, as he dove and saved Allen’s PK shot.

In PK’s Tullahoma, despite a couple of gut-punching moments remained calm. They opened up penalties with a save coming from THS senior goalkeeper, Cole Sterling, and a goal from senior Jude Smith. Lawrence County went on to miss two of their next three shots while Tullahoma made their next two–scored by Sarabia and junior Kaiden Grau–to help give them a match win.

Central Magnet

The Wildcats took on Central Magnet in the district championship. Going into the game, it was known that the matchup was going to be tough. Central was the only in-district opponent that Tullahoma lost to in the entirety of their regular season.

In the title game, THS had a couple of good offensive possessions deep in Magnet’s side of the field in the first half, but were just not able to get a ton of good shots off on goal that made Magnet’s keeper have to do anything special. On the other side of the field, Central was making Sterling work in the net. He had plenty of spectacular saves that looked like sure goals. However, in the second 40 minutes of play, these opportunities that Sterling was able to shut down began to sneak through into THS’s net.

Central scored all three of its goals in the second half. Two came from senior Jacob Gardner, and one came from junior JT Parkerson.

Tullahoma will be in action for their opening round regional matchup on Monday, May 11. They will play an away game against Cumberland County High School.