The Boyle County boys are willing to play anywhere, but they’re happy to be home this week.

A schedule that has taken them in all directions this season helped the Rebels win another district championship and earn the right to host the boys 12th Region Tournament, and they believe that will help them in their pursuit of a regional title.

Boyle won the 45th District Tournament for the fifth consecutive year with a 4-0 victory over Lincoln County on Thursday, and the regional rotation allows the winner of the 45th to host the regional tourney this week.

“We’ve been training on that field all year long, so that’s huge,” Boyle coach David Ritchie said. “We’re a firm believer that we could have gone anywhere and taken care of business as long as we’re focused, but it is definitely huge to get to play at home,” Boyle coach David Ritchie said.

The regional opened Monday night and continues through Saturday. Boyle plays Pulaski County in a first-round game Tuesday night, and Ritchie is counting on having more folks at Rebel Stadium to cheer for his team than made the trip to Garrard County for the district tourney or would go to any other postseason site.

“We’ve been telling (the players) that one of the biggest things about that is we’ll actually have fans coming,” he said. “Because they’re not traveling too far, but when it’s right there at home and we’re getting to host the region, we expect a good turnout.”

Boyle (11-5-2), which has played games in Corbin, Covington and Elizabethtown this season, has a home record of 6-1-2 this season – its only loss was to Marion County on penalty kicks – and 15-5-4 in Ritchie’s three seasons.

The Rebels won two games in Garrard’s new stadium last week to win the 45th District for the ninth time in 12 years.

They defeated host Garrard 3-0 in the semifinals last Tuesday before blanking Lincoln in the title game behind a strong defensive effort.

“They have three or four really dangerous offensive players, and our goal was to press them before they could really come at us, and I felt like our midfield and our back line did a fantastic job with that,” Ritchie said.

Boyle led 1-0 at halftime after a goal by Alan Wireman in the 26th minute, then got goals from Maximus Kilby, Chandler Durham and Micah Brown in the second half to put the game out of reach.

Lincoln (10-4-2) lost despite a big effort from freshman goalkeeper Jayden Warmouth, who had several impressive stops among his seven saves and stayed in goal after suffering a knee injury late in the first half.

“That’s the level he’s been at the last half of the season. He’s been absolutely fantastic for us,” Lincoln coach Carl-Lewis Cummins said. “He’s only been in the goal for two years and he has picked up on it very quick, and he’s been the backbone for our team here this last half of the season.”

The Patriots have reached double digits in wins for the fourth time in the past seven seasons and have won seven games by a single goal, and Cummins said that could help them in what figures to be a wide-open regional.

“We’re used to being in tight games,” he said.

Ritchie said winning the district will be an advantage for Boyle as it pursues its third regional title in five years.

“We said that if our goal was to win region, then we would have to win district because you need the 1 seed going into that because there’s a lot of quality teams in the region this year,” he said.

All-Tournament Team

Micah Brown, Boyle County; McClain Denny, Boyle County; Sam Finke, Danville; Abel Goodwin, Danville; Bo Little, Boyle County; Jaxson Pool, Boyle County; Slade Skeens, Garrard County; Matt Slone, Garrard County; Hunter Stafford, Lincoln County; Zeke Wallin, Lincoln County; Jayden Warmouth, Lincoln County.