With a tad over two minutes left and two fat zeros flashed on the Youth Sports Inc., scoreboard, Lawrence High’s soccer team looked to be in good shape for overtime Thursday night against Shawnee Mission Northwest, right?

Nope, not even close.

Lawrence High's Ibrahim Bah, left, tries to move the ball against Shawnee Mission Northwest's Derek Welter. The Cougars thumped the Lions, 10-0, on Thursday at the Youth Sports Inc. fields.

Slightly to the left of the Cougars’ giant goose egg was a long slender numeral that represented the worst loss of LHS coach Keith Nelson’s career as the 1-5 Lions fell 10-0 Thursday with the mercy rule ending things slightly before regulation, but not nearly soon enough for the overmatched Lawrence squad.

“This was probably the best high school team I’ve seen,” said Nelson. “Nonetheless, our weakness right now is not showing up for the first 10 minutes.”

Northwest (3-0) needed just seven minutes to put the game out of reach, as the Cougars quickly built a 3-0 lead.

Some 20 minutes in and that advantage had grown to a whopping 5-0, with Lawrence looking sloppier than the marshy field.

“The weather sometimes has an effect,” Nelson said. “The game moves faster and when you’re as fast and quick as the other team, they definitely have an advantage.”

The Cougars controlled the midfield with crisp passes, attacking wherever they desired behind their superior speed and doubling down with stronger defenders to eliminate any LHS chance at a score.

“I haven’t seen a team that good in a long, long time,” said LHS senior Alex Hosek. “Things kind of broke down from the get-go.”

Somehow the Cougars are not ranked but Nelson assured that wouldn’t be the case after this week. On Tuesday, Northwest blitzed Leavenworth 10-0.

The Cougars scored four second-half goals, including Kyle Perkins’ third goal which ended the contest.

“We want to practice on teams and I’m not trying to put them down that are a little bit less quality so when we play the bigger schools we’ll be ready,” said SMNW goalie Ben Berning.

For a while Tuesday, Nelson thought the heavy rains might make soak the field too much.

But when asked if he wished the game would have been postponed, Nelson just shook his head and said, “What can you do.”