soccer eagles take three-seed into district tourney

Seymour Eagles head soccer coach Bobby Norwood said his team’s chances of success in next week’s District 3-AA Tournament depends primarily on which Eagles squad shows up.

Norwood explained that his talented 2008 Eagles (10-4-3 overall, 5-1-1 district) have adopted somewhat of a Jeckle and Hyde mentality as the season has progressed.

Seymour, the No. 3 seed in District 3-AA, will begin the postseason Monday night with a home game against the league’s No. 6 seeded team. The higher seeded team will host each meeting in next week’s district tourney.

“We’re hot and cold,” Norwood said of the Eagles following Wednesday’s 3-0 in-school win over Jefferson County.

As evidence to Norwood’s prognosis of his team, the Eagles dropped a hotly contested intra-county matchup with Pigeon Forge by a score of 2-0 Tuesday night at PFHS. In arguably the most exciting and well-played game of the season, Seymour left it all on the field last Friday night in a tensioned-filled 1-1 tie at Alcoa in a meeting with the regular season district champion Tornadoes (12-3-1, 4-0-1).

“If we show up and play as a team and play soccer like I know we’re capable of playing, we’ll be fine,” said Norwood. “If we show up and play like we’ve already got the game won, then we’ll lose. That’s been the story of our season.”

The Eagles must advance to the district tournament championship game in order to earn a trip to the upcoming region tournament.  Seymour will have to defeat either Carter (11-2-2, 7-1) or Alcoa on the road to get to the title game. The Eagles suffered their only conference loss on April 18 against the Hornets.

Seymour athletic director Gary Householder said the Eagles will host Berean, Cosby or possibly even Fulton in the first round of the district tourney on Monday on Benton Householder Field.