Heading into friday night's matchup, South Lakes' seniors had not beaten Herndon. The Hornets kept that streak intact, using attacking offense en route to a 3-0 victory.
Down by one goal in the second half, the Seahawks loaded the front and gained momentum on offense. Phillip Duffy and Sampson Hijar teamed up for a couple of nice shots inside the 18-yard box, but both went wide. Herndon’s Sam Eaddy cleared out the majority of balls on defense for the Hornets and set up his midfielders with precision through balls upfield.
Yet South Lakes stepped it up a notch on defense as keeper Kevin Cronin stayed collected after giving up the goal to sophomore Salah Warid in the first. Cronin, along with his fullbacks, held Herndon to only one or two decent shots in the first 15 minutes of the second half.
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However, Patrick McLaughlin scored two goals in the next nine minutes to put away any hope the Seahawks had left of defeating their rivals.
“They were really good on the ball, very technical and they know what to do with the ball," South Lakes' Suliaman Dainkeh said after the game. “They have great players up top with Patrick McLaughlin. In the second half we wanted to push it, but unfortunately they got in the one goal and that killed us. We just have to keep developing and get better every day.”
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Dainkeh did a good job at both tackling and intercepting balls near midfield. He launched several through balls to his forwards throughout the game, but the timing was a bit off. South Lakes could never find its rhythm on offense, and Herndon’s speed and accuracy from within the box became too much to handle for the Seahawks.
Frustration set in and a fight broke out at 14:51 in the second after a sideline collision between a Herndon player and a Seahawk. The South Lakes player was given a red card and therefore ejected from the game for throwing a punch.
“We came out in the first maybe even a little bit too fired up with the rivalry game,” South Lakes coach Martin Pfister said. “We had to calm down at halftime went back to what we wanted and the first 20 minutes we were getting a good attack in. But it started getting physical and the play just stopped as far as soccer because both teams were just hitting each other.”
Dylan Katz defended well in the second half for South Lakes and said he felt things just got out of hand.
“We got worked up with all the pushing and shoving, so we went in harder and lost our focus on the game a little bit,” Katz said.
South Lakes plays at home against Langley at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
