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Coach's Ejection Ends Dragons' Season Early

Mark Pinson/Highlands Today

Lake Placid senior co-captain Antonio Santana, right, battles for the ball with a Mulberry defender during Tuesday night's soccer semifinal at the Phosphate Bowl.

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By MARK PINSON

Highlands Today

Published: January 29, 2009

MULBERRY - The Lake Placid boys soccer team fell to Mulberry by a score of 3-0 in Tuesday night's Class 3A-District 8 semifinal at the Phosphate Bowl in a match that was called with 30:12 remaining in the second half when Green Dragon coach Josh Virkler was ejected for aruging with the referee.

With no other coach on the Lake Placid bench at the time of the yellow card and immediate red card, the game was called, ending the Dragons' season on a frustrating note.

"It's disappointing they ended the match this way," said Green Dragon senior Eric Barajas. "We were coming back early in the second half, but then the match was called.

"This is tough to take because I was hoping to end my senior season with a win, but we have to live with the outcome."

Down 3-0, Lake Placid appeared to score in the 40th minute off a rebound on a direct kick, but the goal was disallowed because the Green Dragons were called offside on the play.

Virkler calmly argued the call and was given a yellow card and then an immediate red card, which meant he was ejected from the contest.

"The referee meant to give me the red card the entire time," said Vikler. "I just wanted to talk to him about the offside call, but unfortunately I cost my team the chance to try and come back.

"That's a bad error on my part."

Mulberry, the No. 2 seed, advances to the finals to play fourth-seeded Frostproof, which upset No. 1-seed McKeel Academy 3-1 in Tuesday night's other semifinal.

Mulberry took a 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes of the physical match off a pair of uncharacteristic mistakes on the defensive end by the Green Dragons.

"We made a couple of simple, mental errors that we shouldn't have made," Virkler said. "After that I thought we played pretty well, especially in the second half.

The Panthers added another goal moments later to take a commanding 3-0 lead into the half.

"I told the kids to not get down," said Virkler. "We had a couple of good scoring chances late in the first half and we had a head of steam up.

"Even down three goals we still had a chance to come back and right the ship."

With only three seniors on the squad, Virkler thinks the Green Dragons have a bright future ahead of them.

"This is good bunch of players," said the LP coach. "We have speed and plenty of talent and we feel like we didn't do all that we could have this season.

"We're going to have lots of experienced players returning next year and even though this is a rough way to end the season, there's a lot of potential for next year."

Mark Pinson can be reached at 863-386-5837 or mpinson@highlandstoday.com

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