Senior captain and goalie Lucas Perry reminded the Hornets that a tie can be pretty satisfying, too.
Perry punctuated a 15-save performance with a tie-saving stop in the final seconds of the second overtime to preserve a 0-0 standoff with Erskine.
“We came in here looking for a win because we had a tough loss against them,” Perry said. “But we’ll run out with a tie. It gets us points.”
“We’ve been struggling scoring. We haven’t scored in the last, well, now it’s up to four games, so we really rely on (Perry) to keep us in a lot of games,” Leavitt coach Zac Conlogue. “He had four or five huge saves for us. He just dominates that box.”
The Hornets (2-5-2) were inches away from an even tougher loss when Andrew Browne got a foot on Grayson Petty’s throw-in to Perry’s left. Browne directed it to a large opening to Perry’s right, but the goalie got his right foot on it just in time.
“My coach wanted me up (in the box) so I came off of the play,” Perry said. “I knew it was coming short, so I backed up. It just got on his foot and I was just kind of right place, right time.”
“We’re not pleased with a tie. I mean, we should have had three goals,” Erskine coach Phil Hubbard said. “That was a desperation kick foot, but give (Perry) credit because that was wide open. (Browne) put it in the right spot.”
Erskine sophomore goalie David McGraw was outstanding in net, too, stopping 12 shots. It took some time for the Hornets to test him, but he rose to the challenge once they did, particularly in the final five minutes of the first half, when he made two fine stops, the second robbing junior Seth Ramser’s bid off the Hornets’ first corner of the game.
“I think we sat back a little too much and they kind of had their way with us. But we hung with it. We got our chances,” Conlogue said. “We like to play possession soccer so we just eventually wear down our opponents and we had a few chances of our own. Their goalie had a really good game for them, as well.”
Two minutes into the second half, McGraw made a nice stop from his knees to deny Leavitt’s Noah Lind from the left wing.
Two Eagles (5-2-2) shots found the crossbar later in the half. Gabe Gervais’ header off of a corner kick hit it square over a leaping Perry. A few minutes later, Michael Sprague’s bid skipped off the top.
Leavitt’s best chance in overtime came in the second session, when Brian Hewitt’s header off of their second corner went wide left.
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