ASHLAND — For longtime area high school soccer enthusiasts, there was something distantly familiar about Saturday’s Division III sectional final between Lexington and Ashland at Community Stadium.
There was a time during the two-division era when the Minutemen and Arrows would cross paths in the tournament almost annually. That came to an end in the fall of 2000 when the Ohio High School Athletic Association added a third division in boys soccer.
Ashland remained in Division I, while Lexington slotted into Division II.
Since then, the programs had met only once in the postseason. Lexington moved up to Division I for a two-year cycle in 2007 and 2008 and beat Ashland in the district semifinals in 2008.
When the OHSAA expanded boys soccer to five divisions for this season, the longtime tourney foes were reunited in Division III. They re-ignited their postseason rivalry Saturday evening with Lex firing the opening salvo in a 2-0 win.
“When they first talked about going up to five divisions, it was like a pipe dream. I didn’t know if it would ever happen,” said Lexington coach Peter Them, a 2002 Lex grad who was a member of teams that played in both the Division I and Division II postseasons.
“When they finally got it figured out and we found out we would be in Division III with Madison and Ashland, I reached out to (Madison coach) Tim Lord and (Ashland coach) Dustin Hosler and we agreed that this is what postseason soccer in the area should look like.
“This is the way it’s going to be and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Hosler agreed.
“Before the game, Pete and I were trying to figure out when the last time Ashland and Lexington played in the tournament and we thought it might have been back when we played,” said Hosler, a 1999 Ashland grad and member of the 1998 Division I Final Four team.
“I told him the last time that I remember was my senior year, which was just a couple of years ago. It’s great that, going forward, we’ll see Lexington in the tournament. I look forward to that.”
Both schools are members of the Ohio Cardinal Conference and play each other during the regular season. Lex won this year’s conference meeting 2-0 on Sept. 10, but the teams went in different directions after that.
Ashland was 7-1-1 after the loss to Lex and won its final five regular season games. Lex, meanwhile, was 4-5-1 after beating the Arrows and suffered through a rare three-match losing streak, it’s first since 2018.
Lexington (8-7-2) scored the only goal it would need in the 31st minute. Senior forward Will Perkins collected a ball the Arrows weren’t able to clear turned and rocketed a left-footed shot past Ashland keeper Justin Pancake for a 1-0 lead.
“The first half was pretty even except for that brilliant strike from Will. We know he’s capable of that,” Hosler said. “We didn’t clear the ball and it popped out to him and he capitalized on it.”
Ashland (8-7-2) appeared to score the equalizer early in the second half when Grant Koleno sent a shot past Lex keeper Trenton Reed on a scramble in front of the net, but the goal was nullified by an offsides call.
“We didn’t think it was offsides, but we’ll have to go back and look,” Hosler said. “We created more opportunities in the second half, but we just weren’t able to finish.”
Lex added an insurance goal with 22:29 left in the second half. JayByx Mack sent a free kick into the box, where Cohen Lautzenhiser headed in a goal for a 2-0 advantage.
“We scored two headers off set pieces against them last time. We knew we had some height in there and we could go up and attack the ball,” Them said. “Cohen went up and had a great finish in the side pocket.”
Fifth-seeded Lex advances to next week’s Norwalk district tournament and will play No. 2 Sandusky Perkins in the district semifinal at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday. The Pirates beat seventh-seeded Mansfield Senior 2-1 in overtime Saturday.
