LCA Soccer: A Minute To Win It
WINONA LAKE – In a flash, everything changed.
Lakeland Christian Academy looked the smarter and more aggressive side for over 50 minutes of its boys soccer match Saturday against Rochester. But one minute changed the entire outcome of a 2-1 Zebra’s win at LCA.
LCA got on the board literally right away. Josh Turner made a smart pass through the Rochester defense to find Garrett McCoomb, who was true in his finish to give the Cougars a stunning 1-0 lead just 30 seconds into the match. That lead held up through the remainder of the first half, including a pair of attempts from Turner and Parker Stewart clanking off the crossbar out of harms way.
LCA made Rochester keeper Harrison Harrell and his defense work extra hard, peppering eight shots on target in the first half, Harrell leaving his feet on multiple occasions to keep his sheet with just the one goal on hand.
“One of the things we have emphasized coming into games this season is getting that quick start,” stated LCA head coach Vince Sell. “Let’s come out of the gate fast. Force the other team to have to chase us rather than us chasing them. Getting that goal today as quick as we did really put us in a good position.”
Rochester wasn’t without its chances, but foiled itself on two golden opportunities to tie the match up. A three-on-two break had Rochester’s Trey Adley get a point blank look he sent whistling into the weeds well past the net. Another Adley chance was smothered by LCA keeper Remington Swanson in what looked to be very promising for an equalizer.
Swanson, however, found himself in a little extra game of cat and mouse in the second half, and it likely worked in Rochester’s favor.
On two separate occasions, simple saves for Swanson turned into physical bumps by Rochester’s Garret Eytcheson chasing the play. The first seemed harmless, the second really got Swanson’s attention as well as the guard of LCA’s defense. As Eytcheson and Swanson began to jaw in the following minutes, the LCA defense began to pinch inward to where Eytcheson was playing in the midfield. The holes opened up Rochester’s counterattacks, allowing free flow down the wings.
In the 54th minute, Rochester served a ball into the LCA box, which pinballed out to Eytcheson, who buried his attempt near corner for the equalizer. The suddenly confident Zebras took its next buildup right back to goal, where a ball to Eytcheson caught LCA’s defense sagging and ultimately giving up a penalty kick. Adley stepped up and buried the penalty to give Rochester a whiplash 2-1 advantage, two goals in the matter of less than a minute.
“My goalkeeper (Swanson) doesn’t have a ton of experience back there and that showed in how he responded,” Sell said of the bickering and chippy play that led to the two Rochester goals. “He’s gotta grow from that.”
LCA’s best chance to tie the game came in the 66th
minute when Stewart took a through ball and barreled down on Harrell, who responded with a tremendous save on Stewart’s attempt. The rebound shot was blocked on the goal mouth and cleared to safety, allowing Rochester to improve to 3-0 on the season.
LCA, which opened its season Friday night with a 5-0 win over Community Baptist of South Bend, falls to 1-1 but has one of its biggest rivals, Bethany Christian, up next Thursday in the Mennolands.
“When conference is up on the schedule, you have to put that on the front of your mind,” Sell said of the NISL match against the Bruins. “Bethany is one of those programs that we have started to get up on their heels a little bit. But, really, it’s how do we respond to this loss going into that match. We have to put in a whole 80 minutes for it to pay off, not have lapses like we did today.”