Lourdes scored twice in the final 30 minutes on Saturday evening to open Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference play with a 2-1 victory over Cornerstone at Wildcat Stadium.
"We're really happy to start the WHAC season with a win," head coach
Matt Johnson said afterwards. "Cornerstone is a well-organized and difficult team to play against and giving up an early goal definitely made it a tough mountain for us to climb. We were much better in the second half once we calmed down a bit and deserved the goals we scored."
The Golden Eagles struck first just 9:02 into the contest. Boston Knapp received the ball on the right after a feed from Tyler Corstange and scored the first goal of the match. Lourdes held a 6-5 shot advantage in the opening 45 minutes, including a 4-3 edge on net, but still trailed 1-0 heading into intermission.
The Gray Wolves tied the contest with 27:44 to play.
Leon Eisert (Leipzig, Germany/Kathe-Kollwitz Gymnasium) sent a pass to
Hussein Sbeiti (Dearborn, Mich./Dearborn H.S.) who fired from the right side approximately 20 yards out for the equalizer.
Lourdes took the lead with just 9:39 to play, scoring a goal in transition.
Diego Pereira (Asuncion, Paraguay/Cristo Rey H.S.) sent a ball across to
Jonas Kreutzberg (Alfter, Germany/Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium) who scored his third match-winning tally of the year.
The Gray Wolves finished the match with a 12-10 shot advantage with
Alex Brock (Sylvania, Ohio/Southview H.S.) making five stops in net. Ethan Pike made six saves in goal for Cornerstone (3-2-3, 0-1 WHAC).
"We had great passes and finishes on both goals," Johnson added. "Huss and Jonas do a lot of the running to serve the team so we're happy to see them get rewarded for their hard work on the scoresheet. Now we need to put this one behind us with a very difficult trip to unbeaten UNOH on Wednesday."
Lourdes (3-4-1, 1-0) takes its three-match winning streak to Lima, Ohio on Wednesday afternoon for a match against the University of Northwestern Ohio. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. at Racer Field.
