State cup joy for locals

New Albany High School's Kaitlin Robinett headed her Mockingbird U17 team to a fourth straight State Cup title in Lexington on Sunday.

Robinett, a senior next year who has verbally committed to University of Evansville, scored the lone goal against King's Soccer Academy with a diving header off of a cross from Chelsea McCarthy in the first half.

Mockingbird lost two of its players to injury but survived in the scorching heat at Masterson Station Park to book its place at the US Youth Soccer Midwest Regional Championships in Sioux Falls, South Dakota from June 19-24.

“Winning the State Cup four years in a row is amazing," Robinett told Kick It. "It has been a lot of hard work but worth every bit of it.”




New Albany’s Kaitlin Robinett (right) and her team mates celebrate after her goal secured Mockingbird ‘92 its fourth Kentucky State Open Cup title at Masterson Station Park in Lexington on Sunday.

It was also a good weekend for Jeffersonville defender Trevor Bruner, part of the Javanon U17 team which comfortable captured its third consecutive title, and fifth overall. It turned on the style to beat Blugrass 5-1, after it had trashed Rush Nike 7-0 in the semi-final on Saturday.

Javanon '92 will now head to regional to defend its title and hopefully make the national championships -- which are being held in Lancaster, Massachusetts (July 21-26) -- for the second straight year.

A third player involved with State Cup success was Nathan Driggers of New Albany. Now playing with Ohio State, Driggers was part of the Javanon U18s which got the better of fierce rival United 1996 by a 2-1 scoreline for its sixth state title.

Others from the area that made it to state finals were Leah Mattingly of Floyds Knobs with reigning champion Javanon '94 girls. After a very entertaining and energy sapping 70 minutes plus overtime game with Lexington, which ended 2-2, Javanon went down agonizingly on penalty kicks (4-3).

Javanon’s U13 boys' team, which includes brothers Evan and Grant Holkamp, and Varun Alyse, lost 2-1 in the final to United 1996. Evan is a 7th grader at Providence, while his brother, Grant, is a 5th grader at St. Paul. Varun is a 7th grader at Holy Family and is bound for Floyd Central.

Of the Lousiville clubs, Javanon brought home four of the 13 titles on offer, Mockingbird had three winners, and United 1996 had two. Javanon's U19 girls will also represent Kentucky at the regional tournament.



Lexington FC's cheerleaders in confident mood -- despite looking a little sunburnt -- before the club's U14 girls' penalty kick victory against Javanon at the Kentucky State Open Cup finals at Masterson Station Park.

Teams fall just short at Challenge Cup

Teams from Southern Indiana United and Net-Surfers just fell a little short of qualifying for the finals weekend of the Indiana Challenge Cup.

SIU's U12 Strikers went into the competition in confident mood after winning its division in the Kentucky Select Soccer League. It had two wins in Evansville – against Hoosier FC (2-0) and Westside (13-0) – but it was the game against FC Pride Lawrence that undid Paul Duckworth’s charges, losing out 3-1.

Net-Surfers U15s also played in Evansville, and also came out the tournament with two victories. Jamie Ochsner's girls started well, with 2-0 wins over both Indianapolis Premier Soccer Club and FC Indiana North.

However, it came unstuck in its final game against GASC USF Real '94, losing narrowly 1-0, where a tie would have seen Net-Surfers progress.

SIU’s U17s traveled to Columbus for their games in Columbus with a couple of players out for the season due to injury.

Drew Starck’s team didn’t have the best of starts, losing to Fort Wayne Sport Kickers (6-1) and Sporting Indiana FC (4-0), but bounced back in its last game in style to beat FC Pride 6-2.

The four bracket winners in each age category progress to the Challenge Cup Finals, which will be held at Shamrock Springs in Westfield from June 12-14.