Region Champs!: Trojans blank USJ for West Tennessee Regional Soccer Conference title

 

Jason Peevyhouse

Editor, JP Productions Sports

The Dyersburg Middle School boys soccer team continued its undefeated march through school history on Saturday, defeating the University School of Jackson 2-0 at Jackson Christian School in the finals of the West Tennessee Regional Soccer Conference Tournament.

“Our team is so well-balanced,” Dyersburg Head Coach Matt Duggan said. “We have a great defense, we have a great midfield and we have some attackers that can score some goals.

“And, really, if you have a good goalkeeper, it really helps. That’s one of our strengths, too, that we have a really good goalkeeper.

Duggan added the balance goes from top to bottom grade-wise on the Trojan roster.

“We’ve got a special group of eighth graders and they have pulled a ton of weight this year,” Duggan said. “We’ve had some seventh and sixth graders that have been on the field most of the season.”

Dyersburg had multiple chances early as most of the first half was played on the Bruins side of the field. The Trojans broke through in the 21^st minute when Hudson Ford scored off of a throw in to put DMS on top 1-0.

The Trojans were able to fend off the Bruins for the rest of the first half to keep their one-goal lead into the break.

The DMS defense continued to keep the Bruins off the board but it took until the 52^nd minute for the black and gold to get on the board again. A USJ foul in the box resulted in penalty kick which Celso Gonzales put into the left corner of the goal past the diving Bruin keeper to put Dyersburg on top 2-0 late in the half.

From there, the Trojan defense sealed the win to give DMS its first WTRSC Championship.

Duggan talked about how having the momentum for much of the game helped the Trojans get the victory.

“We have different strategies,” Duggan said. “Sometimes our strategy is to get the attack on and sometimes we play more of a defensive game.

“Today, we just had more of the momentum. We had them on the heels so we didn’t want top slow that down, park the bus, and play defense. We kept up the attack. It was going good and we just went with it.”

Duggan said the origin of the 2025 season actually began about five years ago when this group started playing club soccer together.

“We went to Nashville and Memphis on the weekends and got beat 7-0, 6-0, 5-0,” he recalled. “Over the course of a few years, the scores started coming down and we started scoring a few goals.

“The great thing about school soccer is you’ve got to play with your schoolmates. If you play club soccer, you can just go get as many good guys as you want, put a good team together and go beat up on people. But, you can’t do that in school ball. You’ve got to play with the people you go to school with. That’s what’s so special about this team.”

Duggan also gave some credit to the Bruins.

“USJ has a really good program,” he explained. “They had a really good team this year. They’re coached really well and they gave us a really good game.

“Love to play those guys. They’re a really good team to play against. They’re all class acts.”

The win moves the Trojans record to 15-0 on the season which could have as many as three games left. A busy postseason will continue on Wednesday night when DMS travels to Memphis to take on Kingsbury in the quarterfinals of the TMSAA Sectional Tournament.

“Every game at this point means something,” Duggan added. “If you lose, your season is over. It’s going to take three more games, three more wins, to win the sectional.”

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