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Lancers top Saints despite mounting injuries By Paul LaTour Coming off a lackluster loss to Fenton earlier in the week, Lake Park players knew they couldn’t afford a repeat performance against St. Charles East. That message seemed lost in the opening minutes as the Lancers gave up an early goal to the Saints. But they responded with a strong effort the rest of the way, escaping with a 2-1 victory Thursday night at Krupke Field in Roselle. “Everybody out there played hard tonight,” Lancers coach Norm Hillner said. “They really gave an effort. And that’s the first step to being successful, playing hard. You can work on technique and the tactics, but if you aren’t playing hard you don’t stand much of a chance.” The victory snapped a three-game winless streak for the short-handed Lancers (4-2-2, 1-0 Upstate Eight Conference), who had five players sidelined with injuries. A goal by Elson Divinagracia in the 75th minute provided the difference. The game winner came on a play started by David Admire, who caught up to the ball in the corner. He eluded a defender and sent the ball into the penalty area where Divinagracia headed it past Charlie Lyon with 5:34 left on the clock. “I saved the ball and looked up, but I only saw one person in the box, so I wanted to stall a little bit,” Admire said. “I cut it back to my right and then I put a cross in. And Elson came in, got a flick and put it in.” That snapped a 1-1 tie that had stood since the 10th minute when the Lancers scored on a penalty kick. It couldn’t have come at a better time for the Lancers, who needed a boost after giving up a goal to the Saints in the fifth minute. Alec Kubica scored on the penalty kick, beating Lyon with a low shot to the goalie’s right hand. “I knew I wanted to go left on the goalie because I saw him leaning the other way,” Kubica said of his second goal of the season. “I just picked my corner and shot. We were getting down on ourselves, so I think it was good to get us back in the game.” The game remained tied for nearly 65 minutes with both goalies coming up with big saves to keep it that way. Lancers goalie Marty Lupou also benefited from a pair of non-keeper saves to hold the Saints scoreless over the final 75 minutes. One of those non-keeper saves came in the 22nd minute when midfielder Lou Cesario cleared the ball from the far post on a Saints corner kick. The other came in the 51st minute on a header save at the goal line by sophomore Tim Adelman, who had his own cheering section in the bleachers. Lupou had some nice saves of his own, though, including two on back-to-back shots in the 77th minutes as the Saints pressured for the tying goal. Lupou also made a diving save to his right to deflect a shot away from the post and out of play, forcing the corner kick that led to Adelman’s “save.” “For the past two or three games we’ve been getting into a (mindset) that we don’t need to practice, don’t need to warm up,” Lupou said. “We even did that today. We came out walking around, didn’t really have a great warmup. In the first five minutes we let down and then progressively started to pick up the pace. “Coming off of this we’re going to have a really great practice (Friday) and hopefully come out with a win Saturday night.” As excited as the Lancers were to get the win, the injury issue tempered their enthusiasm going forward. Captain Mike Keane remains out with an injured knee suffered Sept. 5 in a 1-1 tie against Wheaton North. “We’re at a crossroad here,” Hillner said. “If we lose Mike Keane for any period of time, that’s definitely going to hurt us. We can’t afford injuries to key people.
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2009 Schedule
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