What’s it take to stop a penalty kick? An educated guess is your best bet.
And thankfully for Catholic senior goalkeeper Michael Sallee, he had plenty of prior in-game knowledge to build his strategy from.
Sallee capped a superb regulation and overtime performance with an even-better showing in the penalty kick round, as he denied all three of Central’s attempts to give Catholic a 2-1 (PK) victory on Tuesday night.
“We’re pretty fortunate to have one of the best goalkeepers in the region, if not the state,” Catholic coach Mike Hines said of Sallee. “I felt very confident going into PKs.”
The outcome marked Catholic’s third-straight PK win over Central, after the Irish beat the Bulldogs in the same fashion twice in 2015.
Sallee, who gave up a PK goal to Central’s Yahya Ben Makhlouf that put the Bulldogs up 1-0 in Tuesday’s match, denied Makhlouf in the PK session to clinch the win for the Irish.
“Besides guessing, that third one (taken by Makhlouf), it’s the same spot he went earlier in the game,” Sallee said. “And we’ve played them three times to PKs in the last year, so I kind of remembered where some people went.”
Sallee took and converted the second of Catholic’s three successful PK attempts. Kaueh Huttenlocher and Ryan Horton gave the Irish a perfect 3-for-3 showing.
Catholic tied the match in the 68th minute as freshmen Dane Rowe set up Trey Garoutte for a one-timer that was out of reach for the Central goalkeeper.
Central had a sizeable advantage in possession and attacks in the opening 40 minutes. Sallee was busy early and often, making repeated diving saves to keep Central off the scoreboard before halftime.
Hines said Catholic began the match with a new-look lineup, before switching back to a more familiar scheme around the midway point of the first half.
“What I asked them afterwards was, ‘Why did it take us until the 68th minute to get us to start playing?” Hines said. “We knew that Central was going to be pretty organized, they were going to be good on the ball, and we had to pressure, pressure, pressure. We started accomplishing that goal in the second half.”
Catholic was hit with a red card in the 77th minute and played the remainder of regulation and a pair of 10-minute overtime sessions down a man, but nearly grabbed an unlikely victory when Keegan Randell’s shot hit the far left post late in the second OT.
A foul on Sallee set up Central’s PK by Makhlouf in the 49th minute, one of several calls Hines disagreed with.
“I gotta be careful what I say here. But we felt like we were playing against 12 tonight,” Hines said. “That’s not a fair statement about the official – he was trying to do his best – but we did not get those types of calls on our behalf. When you have three or four of them go against you, you get a little upset.”
Catholic improved to 10-4 overall and hosts Branson on Thursday. Central (12-3 overall) visits Rogersville the same night.
