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East Lake Boys, Girls Power Through Clearwater

Eric Horchy/SUNCOAST NEWS

Clearwater tried to play catch-up with East Lake all night in their 4-0 road loss. Here, Gilki Dickinson tries to keep pace with Eagle forward Nick Patterson. The East Lake girls also shutout Clearwater 6-0.

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: December 4, 2007

TARPON SPRINGS - TARPON SPRINGS - The East Lake boy's and girl's soccer programs each proved they are two of the best in Pinellas county this season while notching home victories against district rivals Clearwater Monday night.

The boys improved their record to 5-1-0 overall and the Lady Eagles remain an undefeated 7-0-0.

The girls kicked the evening off by rolling to a 6-0 victory over a very young Clearwater squad. Tornado head coach Robert Lucio mentioned his girls are also playing shorthanded with two starters out for the remainder of the season due to knee injuries.

The Lady Eagles controlled the game's tempo throughout most of the night with superb midfield and forward play.

Freshman Clearwater goal keeper Bethany Houser did everything she could to keep the Tornadoes in the game early, recording two highly impressive saves in the span of three minutes to keep things knotted at 0-0.

With the amount of pressure being applied by East Lake and Clearwater's inability to clear the ball out of their zone, goals began to look inevitable.

Ten minutes into the first half, East Lake's Tessa MacGregor got the ball rolling as she cut down the middle of the field through two Tornado defenders and found the back left corner of the net.

Following that initial goal, star forwards Alicia Nalley and Leah Fisher really turned up the heat.

The Eagles' second goal came on a nicely executed corner kick from junior Tara Petzoldt that Nalley locked in on, leapt for and headed past Houser.

Petzoldt and Nally, again, added a goal a piece afterwards for a commanding 4-0 halftime lead they would not relinquish.

After the game, East Lake head coach Raleigh Daves said he was happy with how the girls performed and that he was able to see how they reacted to a different style of defense.

"To be honest, we played better tonight than we did last week against Palm Harbor University," he said, referring to their 2-1 victory over the previously undefeated Hurricanes. "We moved the ball much better and we saw something different tonight with a flat back-four with their defense which we we'll see later on in the season."

The Eagles continued to apply pressure in the second half and eventually pulled most of their starters.

Fisher scored with under 30 minutes to play and freshman Jenna Payne capped off the night by beating the Clearwater keeper on a penalty kick.

The East Lake boys followed the lead of their female counterparts shortly after with a 4-0 shutout triumph of their own.

In the early goings, both teams traded possession and showed that the encore performance was going to be a physical match up.

Clearwater found a way to get past East Lake midfielders multiple times, though that is as far as they would get.

East Lake's back three defenders – Ashton Popo, Matt Kimball and Brent Merrick – stonewalled virtually each and every Clearwater attempt at getting a clean look towards the goal.

That's something East Lake head coach Sergei Stopek said the trio is becoming increasingly adept at as the season progresses.

"There's not a lot of high school teams that play with three in the back," Stopek said after the win. "It's actually really risky, but I feel I have the talent and the kids are learning how to play solid defense.

We play semi-flat, so we don't have a sweeper supporting them. If anything gets by (midfield), it's just them and my keeper."

The high-pressure defense East Lake executed Monday night complemented and fed their all-out attacking offense as the game progressed.

Halfway through the first half, East Lake's Drew Petzoldt gave the Eagles a 1-0 advantage. Not long after that, their offense began unleashing a barrage of shots on the Clearwater goal that lasted the duration of the contest.

On the night, East Lake out-shot Clearwater 16-4.

The Eagles gave themselves breathing room shortly into the second half, when sophomore Javon Bostic broke away from defenders, flipped the ball over the rushing Clearwater goal keeper and walked in for an easy tap-in goal.

Bostic again found the net shortly afterwards, but that score was wiped off because of an off-sides whistle.

Nick Patterson and Andrew Reid tallied the other two second half goals for East Lake.

With the victory, the Eagles now find themselves atop the Class 5A, District 9 standings with Palm Harbor University.

"We know there are going to be games that test us," Coach Stopek said, adding that this is right where he expected to be coming into the year. "We've got one loss, but other than that, we're learning as we go along. The goal is to really get that cohesiveness going into districts."

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