By Mike Marsee

Contributing Writer

Boyle County’s cups runneth over.

The Boyle soccer teams retained the Constitution Cups with decisive victories over Danville on Thursday night in the annual boys-girls doubleheader matching the crosstown rivals. The Boyle boys opened the annual boys-girls crosstown doubleheader by blanking Danville 5-0 for their fourth consecutive win in the Constitution Cup series and seventh straight in the overall series.

Then the Boyle girls scored twice as many goals in a 10-0 victory that was their third consecutive Constitution Cup victory and their 23rd win in their last 26 meetings with Danville.

Boyle’s boys hold a 13-5-1 lead and Boyle’s girls hold a 17-2 lead in the Constitution Cup series since the trophies were first awarded to the winners of the regular-season rivalry games in 2005.

Boys

Boyle County 5, Danville 0

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, but it meant even more than that in this game.

Boyle (5-5) had the ball for most of the night and had most of the scoring chances as it shut out Danville (3-4-2) for the fourth time in its current seven-game series winning streak.

“Most of it was possessions and playing aggressive, and that’s what gave us our goals,” said Boyle forward Jackson Pass.

That has been an area of emphasis for the Rebels, who lost their first five games – all to Lexington schools – but have since won five in a row.

“We’ve been trying to really force it, and it was good to see the guys stick to it today,” Boyle coach David Ritchie said. “We were struggling with it a little bit early in the season, but we’ve really been trying to force not just hitting the ball – because we do have some speed up top – but just really trying to possess it, build it and wear teams down.”

Bo Little scored twice and had one assist and Pass and Alan Wireman each had a goal and an assist for Boyle].

Little made it 2-0 when he punched in a rebound in the 38th minute, and Pass sent a cross to Wireman for a close-range goal in the second minute of the second half.

Matthew Britt also scored and J.D. Cooley and Breydon Hatter had assists for Boyle.

Danville didn’t put a shot on goal until the second half.

“We have to get better at passing the ball,” Danville coach Brent Beauman said. “We have to be able to maintain possession a little bit to be able to build or create anything, and that’s kind of where we’re lacking right now.”

Beauman said neither he nor his players were discouraged by the defeat.

“I told them one game doesn’t make your season and one game doesn’t break your season,” he said. “I’m not ready to give up and quit, and they don’t seem to be either, so we’ll just get back at it tomorrow and get ready for the next one.”

Girls

Boyle County 10, Danville 0

Boyle (6-4-1) found plenty to feel good about in its biggest win to date over Danville (2-5-2). The Lady Rebels got their first mercy rule win over their archrivals when they stretched their lead to 10 goals with 5:09 remaining.

“I feel like these games are feel-good games, and with that we can work on a lot of stuff,” Boyle defender Payton Bugg said.

Boyle coach Brian Deem said one of the best things his players did was show early on that they were ready to put a 1-0 loss to Henry Clay the night before behind them.

“I wanted them to put that behind them and come out here and compete and represent the county, and they did,” Deem said. “They had high energy, they were focused.”

Bugg, who has moved from forward to defender this season, scored 52 seconds into the game off a pass from Mia Kilby, and Kilby assisted on a goal by Maggie Gnann in the 10th minute.

Meanwhile Boyle’s defense snuffed out every attempt by Danville to get off a shot in the first half.

“I think the buildup from the back is pretty successful,” said Bugg, who was one of Boyle’s top scorers last season but moved from forward to defender this season. “Mostly winning balls out of the air in the midfield and the back keeps us pushing forward into their half.”

Gnann, Addison Hazlett and Maggie Burke scored two goals each for the Lady Rebels, and Reagan Britt, Abigail Brown and Sierra Zottolo had one each.

There are nine freshmen – including goalkeeper Ivy Sadler, who had 11 saves, and the entire defensive line – and four sophomores on Danville’s 16-person roster, and coach J.D. Smith said it was a learning experience for the Lady Admirals.

“Most of them, this is the first time they’ve played on this field,” Smith said. “There’s some areas that we’re going to improve on, and they played hard and they gave the effort. And they understood what it meant, you could tell that after the game.”