LP boys break through late

Senior co-captain Santiago Herrera broke a scoreless tie with a goal in the 75th minute, propelling the Lake Placid boys soccer team to a 1-0 win over McKeel Academy on Monday night.

"We finally felt as though we were in rhythm and had all of our weapons back," Lake Placid boys coach Josh Virkler said, "and that was borne out by the result of the game."

The Green Dragons (2-1, 2-0 in District 3A-District 9) received a big boost from the play of co-captain Kyle Thompson, a center-defender, and Ryan Blount, a junior outside defender who was making his season debut after playing his final football game on Friday.

Herrera took a shot from about 20 yards out, gathered his own rebound and squirted another shot past the goalkeeper for the winning score.

Lake Placid will travel to play Tenoroc at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

LP girls rest starters, lose to LaBelle

LABELLE - With two district games this week, Lake Placid girls soccer coach John Merlo opted to rest his starters during the second half of Monday night's match against LaBelle.

The result was a 3-0 loss - but Merlo wasn't concerned.

"A couple of my more aggressive forwards weren't very happy," Merlo said, "but after we talked about it, everybody understood what we were doing it for."

Lake Placid trailed 1-0 in the first half despite having 16 shots on goal. The Green Dragons had two goals called back because of offsides penalties.

The starters then played the first five minutes of the second half before Merlo pulled 10 starters. He left the goalkeeper in the match.

"The coach was looking at me like what are you doing?" Merlo said. "But we've got district games."

Lake Placid hosted Fort Meade on Tuesday night, before a big district match at Frostproof on Friday night.

Sebring struggles with Lake Wales

LAKE WALES - The Sebring boys soccer team got an unlucky break during Monday's match against Lake Wales, costing the Blue Streaks a 2-1 loss.

Lake Wales took advantage of an own goal, which bounced off one of Sebring's players, and scored again midway through the second half on a penalty kick.

Buck Schroeder scored Sebring's lone goal, on an assist from Gustavo Galvin.

"It was a very physical game," said Sebring coach Tim Boulay. "Our teamwork was off a little bit Monday night, and we didn't play like we know we can. We'll learn from it, though."

Sebring (2-2) will play another district game, against Ridge, on Thursday night at Firemen's Field.