Lions continue search for conference win

(Above) Clear Lake’s Easton Goeman works his way around a Humboldt defender during Monday night’s game. The Lions fell, 4-3 in OT.  -Reporter photo by Chris Barragy

by Marianne Gasaway

The Clear Lake boys soccer team suffered a pair of set backs last week with losses to Humboldt and Garner-Hayfield-Ventura.  The losses drop the Lions 1-2 and keep them searching for a win in the conference.  Humboldt sits atop the North Central Conference with a 4-0 record.  Hampton-Dumont-CAL, who the Lions will play Thursday, is 1-1.  Webster City and Iowa Falls are both 1-2 in conference play, while Clear Lake is 0-2.

Humboldt 4, CL 3 (OT)

The Lions hosted league-leading Humboldt Monday, April 11. Play was even in the first half, with both teams having few good chances at goal.

Clear Lake opened the scoring five-minutes into the second half with a goal by Travaughn Luyobya on a ball that bounced around in Humboldt’s penalty area.  He followed up several minutes later with two more goals on through balls by Matt Moore and Adrian Ros to go up 3-0 10-minutes into the second half.

“We made several simple mistakes that allowed Humboldt to have opportunities at goal which they capitalized on with a place kick and two goals to tie the game at 3-3 with six-minutes left in the game,” explained Lions Coach Zach Hall.

The match went to overtime, where Humboldt was able to score three-minutes into the first OT half and win the game, 4-3.

“We had good play from our midfield and forwards, creating chances in the second half after not much in the first half ,” added Hall.  

Goal keeper Hunter Trenary ended the night with 12 saves for the Lions.

GHV 5, CL 0

On a cold and blustery Thursday night, fighting 35-40 mph winds, the Lions battled at Garner-Hayfield-Ventura.   

“We lost the coin toss and had to go into the wind the first half, which set up a defensive fight to get to halftime tied or within a goal since GHV would have a lot of looks at goal with the wind to their back,” said Coach Hall.

According to the coach, the Lions played well-enough for the first 10 minutes, but then started to get tired and lost focus.  GHV was able to get five goals over the span of about 10 minutes putting them ahead, 5-0, halfway through the first. 

The Lion defense tightened up for the remainder of the half and didn’t allow another goal. 

“We had a couple looks in the last 15-minutes of the first half with good play from the midfield of Matt Moore, Adrian Ros, Kinnick Clabaugh, Andrew Korenberg and Tino Velazquez, but couldn’t find the back of the net,” said Coach Hall.

The Lions came out in the second with the wind and worked on getting one goal back at a time, but were unable able to score with GHV parking eight to nine players at the top of the box. 

“We weren’t able to find our way through that many guys and have good looks at goal,” said Hall.  “Everyone worked hard with the cold and wind for the full 80-minutes, but it was not the result we wanted to see with 13 shots but only one on goal.”