Argos Invitational Lakewood Park Chr-NW 1-2 (PK SO), Argos-NW 4-3 (OT)

In Game 1 Argos comes from behind to beat South Bend Washington. Game 2 features Lakewood Park Christian against the NorthWood Panthers.The Panthers play well against the #4 1A Panthers. LPC has a well balanced team that focuses mainly on having a well organized defense. Despite several chances, NW fails to score before the tea. In the 66th, Sebastian assists Landon who slips the ball past the LPC keeper for the 0-1 lead. Six minutes later LPC scores to tie the game. There is no score the rest of regulation and no score either in both half of the OT. So to PK's we go. NW is up first and Kayden's PK is not a goal and LPC does put their PK first in the back the net. Sebastian makes his and the ensuing PK by LPC sails way over the goal (1-1 at that point). Andre scores his as does LPC (2-2). Landon does not miss his PK but Luke comes up big with a stop(3-2)! All Andy has to do is score and we move on to the final. Andy hits the ball with pace and despite the fact that the keeper gets a hand on the ball, the shot is hard enough to hit the net! The referees seem to think they need to have LPC take a PK yet so obviously they either did not track the score or they do not know how a PK shootout works. The 8 o'clock final between #10 (1A) Argos and NorthWood starts out with a bang......for Argos. They score in the first minute. A very energetic Argos faces a flat Panther team. In the 8th minute Landon (who is on his own half) goes at a pass from a teammate. With his speed, he gets away from the defenders but the whistle blows because the AR puts up his flag for off side. Coach Duerksen explains in no uncertain but yet polite terms that the AR is wrong and does not know the rules of the game (a common theme it seems among the 30-55 year old crowd of referees). But the obvious goal scoring opportunity is taken away. Argos retakes control of the game and this results in another goal in the 24th, 2-0. The Panthers get one back in the 30th (Landon Parker) but the Dragons score again three minutes before the half time whistle. A fiery half time speech by coach Duerksen that focuses on workrate and pride has its desired effect. Jerson's pass finds Sebastian's head which leads to the 2-3 header over the GK). Two minutes later, Andy Duran fights to keep a ball in the box and gets the ball to Jerson whose hard and accurate shot finds the back of the net (3-3). With less then 2 minutes left in regulation, we all get ready for another couple of halves of OT. This second consecutive OT game sees a lot of NW players go down with cramps in their legs and understandably so. Two full games is a lot to ask from any player let alone if those games last 94 minutes each. As the coaching staff is about to prepare for another PK shootout, an Argos attack is not cleared properly by the NW defense and consequently, the ball is not dealt with on the second attempt and an Argos forward is able to sneak in and deposit the ball behind Luke with 70 seconds left in the second half of overtime (4-3). Despite another desperation attack by the Panthers, the score remains 4-3 and Argos wins its own tournament.