Soccer

With a 6-2 loss to the North Laurel Lady Jaguars in the championship game of this year's 13th Region tournament, the Whitley County Lady Colonels concluded their 2024 season with an overall record of 9 wins and 8 losses. The Lady Jags scored the first two goals of Thursday evening's regional championship contest, played at the Whitley County High School soccer complex. With 17:20 remaining in the first half, senior Autumn Sawyers scored on a penalty kick for the Colonels, but North scored again about five minutes later to take a 3-1 lead into halftime. Sawyers drilled a shot into the crossbar early in the second half, and teammate Cali Nugent...

Between July 10-13, about 400 high school student-athletes from across the state converged on the campus of Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Ky. for Coach Paulo Neto’s Brazilian Way Soccer Camp. Included on the list participating programs were the Corbin and Whitley County boys teams, both of whom are hopeful for a strong showing in the upcoming 2024 season. “I thought that we had a really good camp experience compared to last season,” said Roger Taylor, who is coming into his second year as head coach of the Corbin Redhounds. “We will be returning most of our starters. The core of the team is still there, unlike last year, where...

The University of the Cumberlands women’s soccer team made history Tuesday afternoon by securing the program’s first-ever NAIA National Championship Title. The Patriots ended the regular season with a 12-0-3 record, and ended up settling for a runner-up finish in the Mid-South Conference tournament after a 2-0 loss to Cumberland University (Tenn.) on November 10. The Patriots had the opportunity to host an opening round game in this year’s NAIA National Championship Tournament on November 18, defeating visiting University of Northwestern Ohio, 2-0, to advance in the tournament. With the opening round victory, Cumberlands moved on to Foley, Ala., where the remainder of the tournament would be played. They defeated Ottawa University...

This week, high school soccer teams across the state are getting their 2023 seasons underway. In the local area, the Corbin and Whitley County boys and girls teams are all gearing up for another year of competition in the 13th Region’s 49th District. Redhounds begin new era under Coach Roger Taylor The defending region champion Corbin Redhounds will have a new head coach leading the charge this season in Roger Taylor, but he is certainly no stranger to the program, playing a large part in its success as both a player and an assistant. “I started playing at Corbin in 1999,” Taylor said. “I played two years in middle school, and all...

Last week, several of Whitley County High School’s varsity sports teams joined forces to present a two-day youth camp that included hands-on instruction in six different athletic activities. The event was a huge success, with around 300 kids ranging in age from preschool to eighth grade showing up to take part. “At this age, kids should try all of it,” said Matt Rhymer, who is about to enter into his first season as the head coach of the Colonel football program. “We have to share athletes here as a rural county school, so it’s really about being one big community. We don’t want to create any barriers or walls, but...

Being a student-athlete is no easy feat. Being a successful student-athlete is even harder. Breaking records on the playing field while earning academic honors in the classroom? Well, any young man or woman who can accomplish that is truly special. For Whitley County High School junior Canaan Parsons, the hard work he has put into his athletic and academic careers are paying some pretty big dividends. Recently, he was one of several WCHS students to be inducted into the National Honor Society, a designation reserved only for high schoolers who are able to maintain at least a 4.0 GPA. As impressive as Parsons’ classroom achievements have been, he has also managed...

Faith and vision. In the early 90s, it took faith and vision to invest so much toward soccer in a mountain town already fiercely loyal to other sports. I know Armando Cima because I coached opposite him for many years. Playing the Corbin Redhounds carried a palpable dread with it; you knew the team would be fundamentally sound, well-organized, and that the players would have a stalwart work ethic, daunting and real. Was this a direct reflection of the mountains, the coach, the families, or a confluence unique to an era, right place-right time-willing people sort of thing? From the limited perspective of an outsider looking in, quite remarkable is...

 The Corbin Lady Hounds soccer team made all kinds of history during the course of the recently completed 2022 season. With a 17-5-1 final record, the team set a record for most wins in a season. They captured 49th District and 13th Region championship crowns, and they advanced to the Elite Eight of this year’s KHSAA state championship tournament. The 2022 season was also highlighted by several exceptional individual efforts, most notably by senior Grace Gibson, who set the record for most goals scored in a single season (55), and senior Olivia Jones, who set the single-season assists record (36). Gibson and Jones, along with fellow seniors Riley Childers, Kaitlyn Will...

The Whitley County High School boys soccer team saw their 2022 season come to an end in the first round of this year’s 49th District tournament, but their 9-3 loss to eventual region champions Corbin was much more competitive than previous encounters with the Redhounds have been. In fact, one has to go all the way back to the 2012 season to find the last time that Whitley managed to even score a goal on Corbin, so the fact that the Hounds had to put up a bit more of a fight in order to advance in this year’s district tourney shows how far the Colonels have come. Whitley managed to...

Tuesday was a busy night for coverage area teams, with the finals of the 2022 50th District volleyball tournament being contested at Williamsburg High School and the Corbin boys soccer team playing in the first round of the 2022 KHSAA state championship tournament. In Williamsburg, the Corbin Lady Hounds and the Whitley County Lady Colonels met up for the fourth time this season on the volleyball court. The Hounds defeated Williamsburg in round one of this year's district volleyball tournament to earn their spot in the championship game, while the Colonels bested South Laurel to advance. The title contest was competitive, as it typically is between these two squads, but in...