Tigers topple Green Dragons

Clewiston took advantage of two early goals and a balanced attack to defeat Lake Placid by a score of 4-1 in boys soccer on Thursday night at Roger Scarborough Memorial Field.

The win improved the talented Tigers to 3-0 on the season, while the loss evened the Green Dragons' record at 1-1.

"We dug ourselves into a hole early and we've got nobody to blame but ourselves," said veteran Lake Placid coach Josh Virkler. "We made a couple of sloppy mistakes right off the bat that you can't make against a solid team like Clewiston."

Clewiston took the lead less than two minutes into the match when junior midfielder David Villegas took control of a loose ball and rifled it past Green Dragons keeper Vicente Ramos.

A minute later, Clewiston senior forward Bryan Baccallo shook loose from several Lake Placid defenders and booted the ball past Ramos to give the Tigers a startling 2-0 lead.

"We had some miscommunication on one goal," Virkler said. "The other goal came after we failed several times to clear the ball away from in front of our goal.

"It's early in the season and we haven't had a chance to practice with all of our players, but we can't afford those kinds of mistakes at any time."

Clewiston, which had 17 shots on goal, utilized its tremendous team speed with numerous runs down the wings and the Tigers kept peppering the Green Dragons goal with shots.

Clewiston added to its lead when sophomore midfielder Nelson Ruiz headed a corner kick into the top left-corner for a 3-0 lead with 12:14 remaining in the first half.

Lake Placid, which had 11 shots on goal, finally got on the board at the end of the first half when Jorge Medina was taken down in the 18-yard box for a penalty.

Medina sized up the Clewiston keeper and the sophomore sharp-shooter blasted a shot into the lower right-corner to trim the Green Dragons' deficit to 3-1 at the half.

"We had patches of good play, but we weren't able to do that on a consistent basis," Virkler said. "We had spurts where we played with a lot of energy, but we need to work on our defending in the backfield and Vicente is still adjusting to being in goal after playing at wing for the last couple of years."

Clewiston sealed the non-district victory when junior midfielder Hunter Gallarneau gathered in a rebound and found the back of an empty net with 33:12 remaining in the match.

Lake Placid dominated play the remainder of the match, but several good scoring opportunities sailed wide or just over the crossbar.

"We were in a bad position not being at full strength with players missing and some injuries," said Virkler. "We'll have a better idea of what kind of team we have once football season and swimming season finish.

"We'll have some practices next week and be much better organized for the rest of the season."

Lake Placid is back on the pitch with a Class 3A-District 9 home match against McKeel Academy (Lakeland) at Roger Scarborough Memorial Field.