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By Andy States
Content Editor, DigitalSports.com
A half of solid play behind them, the La Plata Warriors could have wondered why exactly the scoreboard read like it did on Wednesday night at Calvert High.
La Plata, despite logging considerably more possession time in its boys soccer match against the Cavaliers, was tied with just a goal to show for its efforts. The Warriors earned a little more reward for their work in the final 40 minutes, as they put four in the back of the net to top Calvert 5-2.
"We knew we just had to stay calm," La Plata's Adam Lemmert said. "We were dominating before that. We've worked in practice on spreading the field and that's all we did today and it worked."
After a disappointing loss to Northern to open the season, La Plata (1-1, 1-1) found itself behind 1-0 early against Calvert (1-2, 1-2). But Travis King's goal before the half knotted the score, and Ricky Jackson added two in the first six minutes of the second half to put the Warriors ahead to stay.
"We needed to get back on the winning track after we got beat by Northern," La Plata coach Dennis Burns said. "We played very sloppy and basically [Northern] pretty much dominated.
"I knew we were a better team than that and we possessed the ball very well tonight. We had a lot of opportunites."
With quality chance after quality chance going for naught in the opening half, the Warriors easily could have become frustrated. Instead, Jackson's two goals jumpstarted the offense into the four-goal onslaught that also included goals by Adam Spensieri and Jesse Keaton.
"The guys were real confident," Jackson said. "We came out strong in the second half and put two in early."
"We knew [goals] were going to come," Burns said. "We dominated possession time and when that happens the defense is going to get tired and we're going to get more and more opportunities."
Calvert, which was led by a two-goal effort from Josh Jones against La Plata, opened the season with a loss to North Point, but bounced back with a win by double digits over Lackey. And, looking that a team that is young in the back end, Cavaliers coach John Denton expects a bit of a rollercoaster ride this year.
"We know this is pretty much going to be our season," he said. "We're going to win a lot of games that maybe we shouldn't, and lose a lot of games that we should."
Email: astates@digitalsports.com
