For the team’s eighth win in a row, the varsity boys soccer team had a very strong start against Rock Bridge. Liberty scored two goals before halftime hit, Rock Bridge holding zero. However, Rock Bridge would battle back to tie the match and then Liberty prevailed in penalty kicks to defeat the 2022 district champions, 3-2 at Liberty.
The first goal of the match was scored by senior Turner Lively (#8), drawing a penalty kick and burying it in the 7th minute.
Sophomore Corey Lynch (#16) attained the second goal, making the score 2-0. All within the 15th minute of the first quarter, the Eagles happily cheered and celebrated their lead over the defending district champs.
Activities Director Eldredge wrote on the LHS Activities social media platform X, “[Lynch] bends the ball in traffic in front of the goal,” applauding the tricky play that scored the second goal for Liberty.
With a quick cooldown during halftime, the team hoped to continue their winning streak, only to have Rock Bridge fight back.
Only eight minutes into the second half, Rock Bridge cut the Eagles lead in half, changing the score to Liberty 2, Rock Bridge 1.
Within a minute later, Rock Bridge tied the score, 2-2 with 30 minutes to play.
Coach Luedecke said the team “fell asleep” for the eight minutes that Rock Bridge used to score two straight goals.
“I thought the first half was really good, we had a couple chances to put the game away. We were asleep a little bit during the second half, which gave up some easy goals,” Luedecke said.
Senior Canon Mathison (#9) said, “We let them have the edge on us in the second half, it was kind of a back-and-forth for the rest of the game.”
Going into overtime quarter three, the score stood at 2-2. The teams then took it into overtime quarter four, score remaining 2-2 all throughout.
With zero goals scored in overtime, the teams moved on to penalty kicks (the previous downfall this year of LHS varsity when they lost to Chaminade 2-1 in PKs on Aug. 29).
Liberty scored on its first three penalty kick shots in a row. Rock Bridge scored one after Liberty’s third and then Liberty scored a fourth, taking the win with four penalty goals to one penalty goal.
Mathison reflected on the game and said, “The game went well, we kind of lost our momentum going to try and finish them off.”
“At the end of the day we still came out with the win,” Luedecke said.
Senior Brady Freeman (#7) said, “As a team, I know we can play a lot better, but we got the dub and that’s all that really matters.”
Freeman believes that we deserve being first in the state, according to MaxPreps, and said, “We work hard everyday, it’s what we play for.”
In regard to finally achieving a win from penalty kicks, Mathison said, “It’s a big relief because I haven’t won a PK shootout since my sophomore year and we all know how to take PK’s, we just have bad luck sometimes.”
Francis Howell Central is the opponent on Monday in a home match set for 6:45.
