Lakewood’s soccer team earned a 3-1 win over Princeton on Senior Night in Salemburg.

After falling behind early, 1-0, the Leopards stormed back with goals from Jonathan Gonzalez. The pair of goals let the Leopards take a 2-1 lead into halftime.

They added another goal in the second half when Frances Flores scored to give Lakewood an extra bit of comfort. He also had an assist on the night.

Pate Holland had 10 saves for the game, including a phenomenal save on a penalty kick.

The Lakewood defense and offense seemed to be clicking the entire night, and their head coach liked what he saw.

“I thought we played really good soccer tonight,” said Leopard coach Jay Faircloth. “I guess if we could have done one thing better, it would be doing a better job of communicating. We won a lot of balls today, but we could have really won a lot more had we communicated better.

We like a lot of things we saw today, and with the flow of the game, we realized that we would be able to rest some of our starters because we have another game tomorrow. We are glad that we were able to do that, and one thing that I am proud of, is for the first time in Lakewood soccer program history, we will have at least a .500 record in conference.”

Lakewood is now 7-5 in conference play and 7-8-1 overall. They take on Rosewood on Wednesday for another conference show-down. They are looking to get into form for the upcoming playoffs, and hoping to build on their performance from Tuesday.

“It was nice to play good, after how things went with Hobbton the game before,” continued Faircloth. “This is something that hopefully we can build on and, because we played the type of soccer we are capable of. If we continue to do that, we are going to be alright, and we are going to be a tough team to beat.”

By Adam Capps

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Lakewood’s Lloosman Zabala battles for the ball during the game against Princeton.
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_lloosman-zabala.jpgLakewood’s Lloosman Zabala battles for the ball during the game against Princeton.