Trinity’s Jack Malcolm, far right, celebrates with his teammates following his goal during their match against St. Xavier, Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2016 in Louisville KY. (Timothy D. Easley/Special to the CJ)
Trinity High School goalkeeper Ryan Troutman never has much time to prepare for his soccer matches. By splitting time with Senior Thomas Kolb, the junior usually doesn’t know if he’s starting that evening’s match until he sees the locker room board right before warmups.
“We both push each other in practice, which I think is good,” Troutman said. “We see what we can get out of each other.”
Trinity got a great game out of Troutman Monday as he led Trinity to a 3-1 victory over visiting Oldham County.
In a battle of top-10 teams in the Kentucky Maher Rankings, the No. 3 Shamrocks (13-0-3) maintained their undefeated regular season thanks to their junior keeper. He made six of his seven saves in the second half, and all of them came with Trinity clinging to a one-goal advantage over the No. 10 Colonels (15-4).
The Shamrocks got on the scoreboard first, thanks to some precision passing in the 12th minute. A series of passes led to Jack Malcolm becoming open just outside the 6-yard box. The sophomore found Brandon McManus on the other side of the goal, and McManus drilled the Malcolm feed into the back of the goal for his seventh goal of the season.
Seven minutes later, Trinity went up two goals when Luke DeLeo, who had just come off the bench moments earlier, took advantage of Colonels keeper Thomas Heufner leaving the net for his third of the season.
The Colonels got on board at the 19:06 mark in the first half when Jeff Thomas took possession of the ball deep in Trinity territory. Alone against three defenders, he maintained possession and fired a shot from the top of the box past Troutman for his 24th goal of the season.
But Troutman would get the better of Thomas repeatedly in the second half. On four occasions, the Colonels’ junior, whom Trinity coach Dale Helfrich said was probably the best striker his team played all season, fought his way through Trinity defenders. However, he could not get an equalizer past the Rocks keeper. He had three quality chances in the first eight minutes of the half, but Troutman’s best save came in the game’s 63rd minute.
Thomas worked past two Trinity defenders and found himself in a one-on-one with Troutman, who charged out quickly to cutoff Thomas’ angle. He managed to get his left hand on the ball to block Thomas’ shot and preserve the Rocks’ lead.
“It’s like an immovable object meeting an irresistible force,” Colonels coach Alan Morel said. “This time, the immovable object won.”
Those saves would loom large because Malcom eventually restored the Rocks two-goal lead with 9:45 remaining in the contest when his on-target shot rang in off a Colonels defender for his second goal of the year.
Both teams finish up the regular season this week before venturing into postseason play next week. Trinity will play Seneca next Monday in a District 27 first round match at Waggener, while the Colonels await the winner of North Oldham and South Oldham in the District 29 final.
Helfrich said his team, despite their lofty ranking, is still working on its game as it heads into the districts.
“We’re trying to find our rhythm still,” he said. “We’re still trying to iron out some wrinkles and do a better job of trusting each other (and) trusting the system.”
Trinity 3 (Brandon McManus, Luke DeLeo, Jack Malcolm), Oldham County 1 (Jeff Thomas).