Early in the match, as he blazed past, a thought came to mind: Man, he sure looks a lot smaller on the soccer pitch than the basketball court. Then a quick check of the roster revealed why. It wasn’t Logan Henrichs, the senior basketball and golf standout from Lawrence High. It was his look-alike kid brother, Connor, a sophomore.

Connor plays basketball too, just not as well as his brother. For one thing, Connor’s not as long. Connor golfs also, but not as skillfully as his brother. For one thing, he’s not as long off the tee.

Logan doesn’t play soccer. That sport belongs to Connor, and on a chilly Thursday night at Free State, Connor played it better than anybody in the city.

His goal midway through the second overtime period sent Lawrence High, 1-0 victor against cross-town rival Free State, to the 6A state quarterfinals, and sent LHS students pouring out of the bleachers and onto the pitch. Logan was in the middle of the celebration, and students and teammates chanted, “Connor Henrichs (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap), Connor Henrichs (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap).”

They lifted him up and made a crowd surfer out of him. He was a big deal. After all, he was the only one who scored a goal in the 195 minutes of soccer played between the city’s two public high schools.

So many goals in high school soccer are scored because a mistake is made by a defender. It’s a testament to the sound play of both teams that it took 195 minutes for a goal to find the net.

“They didn’t make any mistakes on that goal,” Henrichs said. “The ball just dropped in the right place at the right time.”

As an outside defender, Henrichs’ primary responsibility lies in preventing goals, not scoring them. On corner kicks, he gets his chances to go on the offensive.

“I crashed the goal and got a goal,” he said. “The ball came over, I saw Zach (Wustefeld) hit it to me, I headed it, it dropped to my foot, and I just knocked it into the goal.”

Just like that, Lawrence High’s soccer program escaped anonymity, and the sophomore stepped out of his brother’s shadow.

“It was cold, but as soon as that went in, everything was hot,” Connor Henrichs said.

The Lions celebrated on Free State’s turf because that’s where they won the regional championship, not to show up anybody. Both Henrichs and second-year LHS soccer coach Mike Murphy, who has established a winning culture in a hurry, were gracious in pointing out what an impressive team they beat and what a terrific season one of the Firebirds’ seniors had.

Jake Walter missed more than half of his final high school soccer match because of a sprained ankle. A former midfielder in his first full season as a striker, Walter scored a remarkable 18 goals this season.

“Losing him, that was a huge blow to them,” Murphy said. “He’s a great player and a guy we accounted for the whole time he was in there.”

Said Henrichs: “He’s aggressive. He’s a great player with great foot skills. He wants goals and he gets them.”

In 195 minutes of soccer against LHS, no Firebird scored a goal, quite a feat for the Lions with skilled feet.