MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Seven years ago, the Boyd-Buchanan boys' soccer team won the Class A/AA state championship, prevailing in both the semifinals and finals by way of penalty-kick shootouts.
Tuesday evening, the Buccaneers felt the other end of a shootout - defeat.
The fifth-ranked Bucs lost 6-5 in PKs after a 1-1 tie with top-ranked Christian Academy of Knoxville, despite outplaying the Warriors throughout the match. Boyd-Buchanan outshot CAK 10-5 and dominated possession for most of the match but was unable to hold the lead.
"Soccer is an evil game sometimes," Boyd-Buchanan assistant coach Jason Owens said. "Sometimes you come out on the wrong end of it even though you're the better team and played better. Not to take anything away from them. They played; we played harder and better. I do wish them luck; they played with class, so I wish them well and hope they win.
"It's not them. No matter who the team on the other side, we played harder, played better, and we hate the results."
CAK (16-5-2) goes on to face Page, which defeated Jackson North Side 1-0 in another quarterfinal.
The Bucs struck first 14 minutes into the game, with Jeremy Borders feeding the ball to Hayes Wood, who cut around the edge and fired a shot past the keeper for the 1-0 edge. The Warriors countered in the 32nd minute when Trace Helfrich scored on an assist from Ryan Clift.
Boyd-Buchanan continued to dominate possession, with multiple shots on goal only to be turned away by either the defense or keeper Isaac Schoutko. The Bucs' best opportunity came on a Will Boyanton volley of a long cross that just skipped over the goal.
The Warriors continued to try to counter and also had some solid opportunities, none more dangerous than a rocket by Helfrich that sailed just over the outstretched arms of Bucs keeper Isaac Antwine and over the goal.
Schoutko made a pair of key saves in the shootout, turning away attempts by Wood and Nick McElroy. Antwine forced a miss by Clift, but after McElroy's miss in the seventh round of the shootout, Baker Benfield rocketed an attempt in for the game-winner.
"We outplayed, outhustled them, outworked them," Boyd-Buchanan head coach Dustin Walker said. "We felt they started to play for penalty kicks and they got what they wanted, because it's a roll of the dice at that point, but we knew they were the No. 1 team in the state and we knew we were better than them and everyone in the complex knew we were the better team.
"We're upset about the result, but I truly thank God that he gave us the opportunity, the fact he brought us these kids, that were there for a reason. I couldn't be more thankful for him letting us coach these kids."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.