Lakeland-NorthWood 0-8 (0-4)

A long bus ride that starts late but eventually gets us to Lagrange as we travel from one Amish Capital to the next. A quiet crowd of 33 "packs" the 6 stands at the beginning of the game. It would swell to almost 60 by half time. The Panthers get announced and it sounds as if we have contracted some new players for this game. Alden Greenlee, Trent Iwuuuma and Dominic DAY Freitas apparently take the field. The National Anthem starts about halfway through the first line on a absolutely gorgeous summer afternoon. The field is in good shape and the Lakers have an actual press box. Oh, to have a press box and storage shed!! 1st HALF- The Panthers start with a plus 6 passing string (probably close to 15 or so) and would end the night with a 77% Pass Succes Percentage for the night. In the third, Michael takes his first shot at goal and it hits the left and then the right post. The woodwork takes another beating in the 5th as Dom hits the post as well. Despite being in possession of the ball throughout the first 25 plus minutes in the first half, NW is unable to get a ball behind the Lakers stopper. A individual effort by Carlos finally gets us underway. In the 22nd, Carlos driblles thru the Lakeland defense like a hot knife thru butter and scores NW's first goal of the game. Dom (DAY Freitas) takes it upon himself to double the lead 11 minutes later (assisted by Carlos). Finally the floodgates open up a little. Two minutes later a nice combination puts us ahead by three when Joel finds Carlos, Carlos crosses flat across the goal mouth and Joel finds the back of the net. Another three minutes after that, in the 38th, Grant places himself on the assist stat sheet when he delivers a very nice long pass into Carlos' feet. Carlos has little trouble finishing and changes the scoreboard to 0-4 for our HT score. 2nd HALF- Four minutes into the second act we continue add more ink to the scoring list. This time Dom finds a lively Carlos by way of a thru pass. Carlos makes sure his old friends and cousins won't forget his performance anytime soon puts the ball over the line for the 0-5 lead. In the 51st, Ethan executes a long throw in to Dom who goes in the box and takes a shot that finds the ropes, 0-6. Dom finishes the night with a brace. In minute 55 Joey gets in on the action as he lays off an assist to his buddy Michael. Michael shot stat sheet will finally have one dot in orange as he puts the long shot into the back of the net for the 0-7 Panther lead. A minute later, Landon gets his first assist of the night when his pass gets to yes, you guessed it, Carlos Alvarez who signs for the 0-8 which effectively gives him the Haul for tonight's game. So a Brace and a Haul within the same game and add to that a goal for Joel and Mihael and you end up with 8 total. As hard as we battle to score the mercy goal, it would not come tonight. We hit the crossbar and posts several more times but the Lakers GK prevents number 9 from going in with the help of the woodwork of course. Trace takes the field to defend out goal for the last 22 minutes and everyone gets to play tonight with the exception of Alex who felt good enough to come to school today but did not feel that great during the match and was physically unable to take the field. All in all, we played good possession style soccer, were very patient and never got in a hurry to score goals by skipping the midfield or going straight up thE middle.The referees are invisible tonight and have little work to do. On the 0-10 scale, they collectively receive a "8". An uneventful night with the exception of 8 goals. The Panthers are 2-3 on the season and will entertain Wawasee on Tuesday at home in or third NLC match up.

GOAL SCORERS CARLOS (#3- 4 GOALS) AND DOMICIC (2 GOALS) ARE SHOWN ON THE ATTACK AT LAKELAND.

A

A RELAXED BENCH

ALEX PLACES HIMSELF IN QUARANTINE ON THE BACK BENCH AFTER FALLING ILL