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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Medical Lake drops regular season soccer finale to Lakeside

Second-half surge earns Lakeside 3-1 win on soggy field

 

Last updated 10/27/2016 at 5:45pm



First it rained buckets most of the day.

Then came a quick deluge of goals and the Lakeside Eagles emerged from their final regular season Northeast A League soccer showdown with a 3-1 win over Medical Lake last Thursday, Oct. 20, on Senior Day.

The win gave Lakeside (9-3 NEA, 11-3 overall) the edge in the final standings over Medical Lake (8-4, 9-7) and earned the Eagles home field for a loser-out playoff tiebreaker that was played Oct. 25.

Moved to Holliday Field because of the rain, and played under the lights, the contest was scoreless after a half but the Eagles struck twice early in the second 40 minutes.

Alexis Torok scored on a free kick in the 47th minute and Kayleigh Talbot followed with a score in the 50th minute, the first of her two goals, eventually staking her team to a 3-0 lead.

The two Lakeside goals came off deflections, the free kick arching up over Cards’ keeper Taylor Cannon and dropping in off the crossbar. The second dribbled in after Cannon got a hand on a diving try to make a save.

“The first time we played them we had some goals like that,” Cardinals head coach Zane Higgins said of their 3-2 win on Sept. 23. “We were just slightly out of position (today).”

Nicole Wetherell got Medical Lake on the board late, in the 79th minute, but it was not enough.

“It was a game of momentum,” Higgins said. “We started off (and) I thought we had all the momentum; we were dominating play at the beginning of the game.”

That included Makayla Geiger breaking in one-on-one with the Lakeside keeper in the 10th minute, but was unable to score. “If we would have put one of those good chances in it might have been a different story,” Higgins said.

Down by what amounted to a huge margin in a soccer match in the final five minutes, the Cardinals controlled play until the final whistle.

“Part of that was Jaxyn (Farmen) being up in the midfield for us,” Higgins said. “We just couldn’t finish it off, that was the problem.”

Higgins said his team played very well in the regular season finale. “They were fortunate to get the three goals they did.”

Earlier in the week, the Cardinals lost a nonleague contest 2-1 at St. George’s. Geiger scored the lone goal for the Cards in the 44th minute, cutting into the Dragons’ 2-0 first half lead. Cannon made six saves.

“She’s doing an outstanding job for us,” Higgins said of Cannon, his keeper who will return as a senior next season.

After winning five consecutive matches through Oct. 4, Medical Lake had lost three straight and four of its final five outings prior to the tiebreaker contest.

Regardless of how Tuesday’s rematch with Lakeside plays out, the season has been nothing short of sensational for the Medical Lake soccer program.

“It’s probably the biggest turnaround I’ve been involved in to go from a 1-11 regular season to 8-4,” Higgins said. “That’s pretty good, I’m happy with that.”

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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