With a record full of ones (1-11-1), Lawrence High’s boys’ soccer team knew it would record a two on Tuesday in one column of its standings, and the Lions’ No. 3 made sure that numeral would depict a win.

“It just feels great,” said a smiling Tyler Rush, whose first goal of the season proved to be the game-winner three minutes into double overtime as Lawrence defeated Leavenworth 1-0 at the Youth Sports Inc. fields.

Since the victory was the first for Keith Nelson in nearly a month, the LHS coach said waiting another 15 minutes of overtime didn’t bother him, despite the crispness of his team’s first cold-weather game of the season.

“I was real proud,” Nelson said. “That was a team that will not die.”

And Lawrence didn’t in overtime, but the Lions had plenty of chances to put things away before the extra periods.

Rush had at least a handful of quality opportunities that fell on either side of Leavenworth’s goalposts in each half.

“I was starting to really get cold out there,” said Rush, who took a pass from teammate Josh Yurek in front of the Pioneers’ net, spun away from two defenders and beat goalie Jim McCollum with a crossing shot to the left.

“I guess it was time to finally end things.”

Rush wasn’t only talking about the scoreless game against Leavenworth. The Lions have been on a winless slide since Sept. 17, when they picked up their lone victory of the season with another overtime goal in a 2-1 win against Shawnee Mission North.

Things had been pretty much downhill for the Lions since then, as they had been outscored 33-2 coming into Tuesday, with one game ending by the mercy rule and another, last Thursday against SM East, coming darn close when LHS fell 8-0.

Yet the Lions did manage to tie Free State on Sept. 26 and followed that game with a 1-0 setback against Blue Valley.

Lawrence High's Josh Yurek, right, moves the ball against Leavenworth. The Lions beat the Pioneers, 1-0 in double overtime, on Tuesday at the Youth Sports Inc. fields.

The attitude LHS players showed in not only on those somewhat successful nights, but even during the glaring defeats is what made Nelson proud Tuesday.

“This has been a team that has had to respond to adversity,” Nelson said.

And the Lions endured again on Tuesday, even though 1-11 Leavenworth wasn’t nearly the team of the other strong Sunflower League squads. The Lions who were playing without arguably their best player in Oscar Ortega, who returned to California to be with his sick mother would have to win with a man down.

With 21:52 left in the second half, Lawrence’s Pharouk Hussein slammed into Leavenworth’s Ovidio Gonzalez in the open field.

Gonzalez, who by the sheer sound of the collision and positioning of his body, looked to possibly have suffered a broken leg, but would later return to the game with just a severe bruise. Hussein would not. He received a red card for the foul.

The Pioneers nearly produced a goal off the penalty some six minutes later.

Leavenworth’s Sean Durran, whose wide-open, point-blank blast was stuffed by Lawrence goalie Greg Scholtz.

“I felt we had outplayed them with 11 on the field,” Nelson said. “And I thought we could keep going for it with 10.”

The Lions did and on three separate occasions late in the second half and beginning of overtime Josh Lorenzo barely misfired on big boots that would have ended things.

“The thing about this team is they never stop believing,” Nelson said. “If they had, then they would have just given up.

“Instead they were out there everyday in practice or games battling and tonight that hard work was rewarded.”