Can Clarke Central boys soccer make it over the hump in this season's GHSA tournament?
Clarke Central boys soccer coach Chris Aiken is in his 13th year at the helm and gearing up for his eighth postseason stretch.
The Gladiators program hasn't been able to bring home a title since 1999, well before Aiken's tenure began in 2011. The furthest he's ever led his troops of red and yellow has been to the semifinals during the 2013-14 season, where they lost 2-1 to Houston County — the second of many future matchups and heartbreaks between these two. The previous year, they'd made it to the quarterfinals, where they'd also lost to the Bears in a 3-1 battle.
"We reflect on the McIntosh loss from two years ago a lot," Aiken said. "The game was tied 1-1 and we hit a shot off the crossbar in the second half that could have given us a 2-1 lead to potentially win the game. They went on to win the state title that year, so it could've been the difference of flipping that result to give us that potential path instead."
Those were also the only two tournaments they'd been seeded No. 1 in Class 5A. Until this year, of course, when they defeated Jefferson to remain undefeated at 14-0-2 and 6-0 in their Region 8-5A to claim their third region title, the top slot and hosting privileges.
"(Coach Aiken's) been very consistent, that's the thing I'll say about him," senior striker Thadd Pruitt said. "He has a strategy, and it works pretty well. Good records and seasons (in his wake)."
The other two region titles under his belt are from years one and two.
"I won the region my first two years, so things got pretty wild (this year)," Aiken said. "When you win it your first two years, you think things are pretty easy and you can just win it pretty often, but we quickly found out in my third year that it's not as easy (as we thought). ... We've finished region runner-up the past seven years in a row, so to get back on top certainly feels good."
Since COVID canceled the 2020 state tournament, Clarke Central has managed to grasp the two-seed three years in a row. It reached the quarterfinals in 2021, losing 2-1 to McIntosh, which it met again in the second round in 2022 and lost, again, 2-0. Last season was Clarke Central's hardest postseason loss on paper yet, when they fell 5-0 to Midtown in the second round.
Redemption is on the clock for the Gladiators, that much is clear.
"The past two years, we've had a very defensive mindset," Aiken said. "We focused a lot on playing a 4-5-1 holding formation that has a lot of people behind the ball, keeps the games very close, a lot of 1-0 games, 2-1 games. We had a very heavy emphasis on trying to keep the game 0-0 as long as possible to try to eke out 1-0 wins.
"It was very successful for us in the regular season, I think we had a 90-plus percent winning rate, but it didn't prove very fruitful in the playoffs. Any time we got down by a two-goal margin, we struggled to make up that difference because we'd spent so much time during the regular season focusing on defense that we didn't spend a lot of time emphasizing on getting the ball forward and creating offensive chances."
Coming into this year, there was a 180-degree flip in philosophy.
Senior midfielder Lucas Stuart put it in simple terms: "Don't take your foot off the gas."
"We're not afraid to let goals in, we want to score as many as we could and go toe-to-toe with every team we played," Aiken said.
It's paying off. Aiken said they have a roughly plus-79 goal differential in region play, letting in only five goals but scoring 29. The tactic shift was necessary, and the Gladiators are now reaping the benefit of why. If they can hold onto the momentum headed into the first round of the playoffs on April 17 against Lithia Springs at home, it sets them up for success in the grand scheme of things.
"Lithia Springs has a kid who has scored 27 goals this season, so he's a pretty quality attacker," Aiken said. "We have to kind of figure out what he likes to do and what his tendencies are and then keep an eye on him and limit him as much as we can. They've also got a player committed to play at Aiken, South Carolina next year. He's a very good defender one-on-one, but they also switch him to play the attack a lot because he's explosive, fast, likes to cut it and shoot.
"It'll be a tough matchup, for sure."
Sara Tidwell covers Athens-area high school sports and University of Georgia athletics for The Athens Banner-Herald. Contact her at stidwell@gannett.com and follow her @saramtidwell on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Chris Aiken on philosophy changes, what's led them to stay undefeated
