The Forrest Rockets forged a path through the postseason that included a District 9-A championship, a Region 5-A championship and a Class A sectional win as well. Forrest closed the season with a 14-2-2 overall record. (Submitted Photo)
By CHRIS SIERS
csiers@bedfordcountypost.com
Entering the 2025 spring season, Forrest soccer head coach Jason Ellis knew his team could be special.
Before the season, the team set the then-lofty goal of reaching the Class A state tournament.
Following a remarkable district championship win against backyard rival Community, the Rockets began to believe and rode that wave of momentum through the postseason all the way to the Class A state tournament.
“I think the district championship game against community, we were losing 2-0 with about 10 minutes left and we scored three goals in three minutes to win,” Ellis said.
“I think at that point, after that the boys knew this was possible.”
Forrest carved a path throughout the postseason that included a District 9-A championship with the 3-2 win over Community, a Region 5-A championship with a 2-0 win over Battle Creek and a 2-0 Class A sectional win over Harpeth to punch the first-ever ticket to the big dance in Murfreesboro.
But in their first game of the state tournament, the Rockets got the tough draw of facing the eventual state champion Independence Academy and saw their season come to a close with a 7-1 loss.
Outside of the lop-sided score in the state tournament, Forrest hung its hat on a stingy defense all season.
First time we’ve ever made it to state. I think we wound up with a 14-2-2 record. Our defense was phenomenal this year. I think outside of the state game, we gave up 16 goals and scored 60-something. We just ran into a buzz saw against Independence Academy. They spaced us out on that regulation field—we don’t play on many of those. They were good,” Ellis said.
Forrest was led by the core of its two seniors in Rylan Davenport and Haiden Penrod.
“Rylan Davenport played more of a defensive-mid position for us. He was the overall district MVP. He had numerous assists and had a very high soccer I.Q. and knew when to get back and who to cover. We actually only had two seniors, him (Davenport) and Haiden Penrod was a defender who was a solid, physical player. He was good at shutting guys down and not letting them get free space in the box,” Ellis said.
“My two seniors have been starters since eighth grade. I think some of the other players we’ve had playing two or three years now and we made it to sub-state two years in a row.”
Those two helped provide the foundation of leadership for the Rockets’ historic run this season.
“We talked about our goal at the beginning of the season and that was to make it to state. That’s what we would consider a successful season and we were able to do it. We returned a lot of players and we’re still a fairly young team. Its going to hurt losing the two seniors and a couple of foreign exchange students,” Ellis said.
With the program clearly trending the right way, Ellis says his team can still find improvements, including on making the most of its scoring opportunities.
“There’s been several matches where we should have scored and just didn’t. We tied Richland early in the year, 3-3. They got three goals and only had three opportunities to score and two were PK’s. We probably had five or six times more shots on goal than they did and we didn’t capitalize,” he said.
The Rockets return a core of experience next year and hope to make the next step as a program with an even deeper run in the state tournament.
“The program has a bright future,” Ellis said.
