The Leopards soccer team was in action on the pitch Monday afternoon, tangling with West Columbus in conference action. Clear skies and comfortable temperatures set the stage as the two teams took the field to battle it out. This was a rather lopsided effort, though, as Lakewood dismantled the visitors and took home an 8-0 victory.
The first five minutes of the contest was owned by the Leopards as they maintained possession in the Vikings’ defensive zone. It took a little while for Lakewood to get things going, but once they did, the game quickly turned into a Leopards onslaught.
Anner Yanes struck first, dribbling in freely from left of the goal to get a quick, uncontested shot on goal to put the Leopards up 1-0.
Moments later, Lakewood struck again, quickly jolting their lead to 2-0 at the 27:24 mark of the first half.
The Leopards were just getting started, as constant pressure kept producing goals. It became clear very quickly that Lakewood was more passionate about this game than the visitors as the Leopards continued to apply loads of pressure.
Lakewood’s next goal came off a great pass from right of the goal to an awaiting Lamar Cromartie, who was camping out front of the goal. He collected the pass and fired in the Leopards’ third goal of the game, putting them up 3-0 at the 26:39 mark.
With Lakewood firmly controlling everything about the game, two more goals in the first half were in store for the Leopards. The next one came at 23:20 off the foot of Cristofer Cortez and the other by Gerson Navas at 12:41.
With that, Lakewood took a 5-0 lead into the intermission.
When the halftime festivities concluded, the game was set to resume for the final 40 minutes. Here, the Leopards had one final surge left in them to run up the score, but ultimately falling short of the nine goal mercy rule threshold.
Jose Flores quickly tallied for the Leopards in the second half, getting them on the board for goal number six at the 37:30 mark. Just a little over a minute later, Andy Morrales stuck one in as well, making it 7-0 with 36:12 still to play in the second half.
The scoring slowed down after that but Lakewood continued to display their ability. Still, there wasn’t a lot of action around the goal, rather things shifted to the open field. As a result, the clock quickly rolled on with no stops in play.
Down the stretch, John Fernandez punched one final goal in for the Leopards, bringing the tally to the final margin of 8-0.
With the win, Lakewood moves to 5-9-1 overall and 5-2-1 in Carolina 1A/2A Conference play. Next up, the Leopards will travel to take on Union Wednesday for a 6 p.m. contest.