8 Years Later, Lady Cats Soccer Gets Set To Host Kingston

In High School athletics, you don’t normally see almost a decade pass between meetings for two schools.

That’s the very situation the Livingston Academy Lady Cats find themselves in on Thursday, as they get set to host Kingston in the Region Championship for the first time in eight years.

“I am so pumped,” Livingston Head Coach David Sadler said. “They have worked hard for this…they haven’t won a Region Championship in 20 years, the last one was in 2000.”

The last time these teams played, the year was 2012. Tik Tok didn’t exist as a social media platform, and the presidential election featured Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney. Kingston won a tightly contested match over the Lady Cats by a final score of 2-1, the second year in a row that the Yellowjackets defeated Livingston.

The two teams also played in 2011, and the score was also a close 4-2 win for Kingston. Both teams made it to the Region Semifinals that year, but neither advanced.

“I’ve tried to schedule them this year and last year, but it just didn’t work out,” Sadler said. “It is hard to get your mindset around a game plan when you haven’t played them in so long…They’ve played Scott County, Anderson County and Cumberland County, so we have been able to get some stats from those games, but it is very difficult when you haven’t seen them in that long.”

One player to watch for Livingston Academy in this game is Senior Striker Jena Harris, who’s been on a tear for the last 16 days.

In the team’s previous five games, Harris has scored eight times, including the only two goals in an Oct. 8 win over Cumberland County for the top seed in the district tournament. In that very tournament, she scored two more goals in the championship game to lead LA over the Lady Jets again.

If this Lady Cats team is to go far, it all starts on offense with Jena Harris.

“Jena has really stepped up and come alive as a leader this season,” Sadler said. “She’s just going all out, and she’s putting up crazy numbers. She’s making things happen when you don’t think they’re going to happen.”

As far as the defense is concerned, Senior Goalkeeper Tori Hinds has been excellent all season as well. In that same five-game span, she’s notched three shutouts, including the Region Semifinal against Scott where she recorded 15 saves.

Add in that she’s only allowed four total goals in that span of games, Kingston has a tall task of scoring on her in Thursday’s match.

“She is one of the most important players out there, and she’s done an excellent job,” Sadler. “That defense (in front of her) is just so strong, and Tori clicks with them and they click with her.”

The Region Championship between Livingston Academy and Kingston is set to kick-off Thursday night at 6 P.M.