If you are Lawrence High soccer coach Keith Nelson, how do you celebrate the night before your 30th birthday?

How about with the biggest win in LHS history and just for good measure your whole team can serenade you with a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” as you stand red-faced near midfield?

Lawrence High's Samantha Lopez (4) battles Olathe South's Chelsea Klaassen as Aly Barland (7) looks on Tuesday night at the Youth Sports Inc. fields.

Or they could just jump on you, WWF-style, with every Lions player in sight piling on.

“Happy Birthday,” shouted LHS senior Samantha Lopez, who helped out with all three things Tuesday night at the Youth Sports Inc. fields especially the victory part.

Lopez booted the game-winning goal with a little more than 18 minutes left in the second half of Lawrence’s 1-0 victory over Olathe South, the fifth-ranked team in the state.

“Definitely the biggest win, I think, in this school’s history,” said a grass-spitting Nelson of Lawrence’s first-ever victory over an Olathe school which improved the Lions to 8-4-1 on the season.

“They were a phenomenal team that was just so fast. We worked hard on trying to contain their speed and slow them down, and then we went out and did that.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that easy.

Olathe South (9-5) controlled the majority of the first half and kept LHS goalie Shannon Fisher on her heels with several on-goal shots, most ending with Fisher making highlight saves.

While the Falcons booted seven shots on Fisher in the first 40 minutes, the standout sophomore stoned all of them, including a couple by Missouri signee Kyle Wilson and a point-blank blast by Andre Volin.

“I’m basically nervous on all of them,” Fisher said about the abundance of close shots the Falcons flung at her. “But I try to focus on catching it and watching the ball in.”

She did and Nelson knew that Fisher, who has shut out every opponent LHS has defeated this season, could continue to play tough in the box in the second half. But he was hoping his offense could benefit from a strong wind blowing in its direction.

It didn’t, at least not at the start of the second, because O-South continued its offensive surge with five shots on goal in the opening minutes compared to zero for LHS.

But 20 minutes later that all changed when Lesley Belt handled a LHS throw-in and lobbed a bounding pass that gave Lopez all the time she needed to outrun her defender.

Once in the open field the speedy Lopez dribbled close and then juked goalie Jenna Hatlestad before lacing a crossing shot past her outstretched body.

“This is totally a team thing,” Lopez said. “They’ve just been hitting my feet, I’ve been getting lucky.”

Nelson doesn’t think so, and the fact Lopez has scored six of her 10 goals in the past four games proves his point.

“What can you say, she works so hard,” he said. “She runs her tail off every single game. And when you work that hard every single game, you get rewarded with opportunities.”

While it was Lopez and Fisher that provided the starring roles, Nelson praised the effort of his entire team and said “they played great for an entire 80 minutes.”

“I think this was a defining moment for us,” Nelson said of Tuesday’s victory that pushed LHS’ win streak to six. “In their hearts they know now that they can beat any good team.”