Olathe North nudges LHS girls soccer, 1-0

Lawrence High freshman Mia Comparato gets out in front of Olathe North's Hailey Iennaccaro (58) and Hannah Rardin (2) during their soccer match Tuesday evening at LHS.

Lawrence High girls soccer coach Justin Young told his players that the final 10 minutes of Tuesday’s game against Olathe North was “the best he’s seen them in a while.”

The Lions were on the attack in the final minutes, pushing the ball up the field and firing a flurry of shots against O-North goalkeeper Laura Carpenter.

But those 10 minutes just weren’t enough to make up for lost time in a 1-0 loss on Senior Night at LHS. The Lions honored their four seniors — Keeli Billings, Emily Easum, Sadie Keller, and Cortlynn Stark — prior to the game.

Stark, who injured her knee last week and was walking around on crutches, stepped on the field for the start of the game and exited after the first whistle to a big applause from the crowd and hugs from her coaches. Keller couldn’t play after receiving a red card in the team’s last game.

“I think it was good for her,” Young said of Stark, “but I also think it hurt realizing, ‘My team is going to have to play this without me. I don’t get the opportunity to be a part of this special night.’ Cortlynn is torn up about it.”

The Eagles (6-9) scored 10 minutes into the second half when junior Ryann Noyce launched a shot over LHS goalkeeper Katelyn Murrish’s head and into the back of the net.

“They caught us off guard,” Young said. “It was something we talked about, not this team specifically, but we’ve talked about quick restarts, we need to front the ball to prevent them. We just kind of lost our head for a moment, forgot about it, and we paid the price for it.”

Billings added: “It was unlucky. There was nothing we could do about it. It shouldn’t have happened, but we couldn’t do anything about it.”

In the first half, the Lions (4-11) didn’t record a shot on goal, relying on defenders Easum, sophomore Skylar Drum, sophomore April Hodges and junior Elaine Harris to make stops.

But the second half was a different story. A switch flipped and the Lions seemed on the verge of scoring a goal. They picked up energy from attackers freshman Mia Comparato, junior Quincy Howell and junior Erin Ventura while receiving good passes from Billings and junior Micaela Riley.

Junior Berit Kelley also returned for her first game after suffering a concussion.

In the 60th minute, Billings dropped a free kick into the 18-yard box, but Comparato just missed wide on deflecting it into an open net. Three minutes later, freshman Maria Duncan sent a cross into the box, but a few Lions were a step slow to knock it in.

“I thought we brought more energy in the second half,” Billings said. “During our halftime, we talked about how it’s Senior Night and how we really need to pull through for this. It just didn’t turn out how we wanted. But in the second half, we came out with more fire.”

The Lions have struggled to score goals in past few weeks, scoring just once during their current six-game losing streak.

“I’d say following through is our number one thing on scoring goals,” Easum said. “We have so many opportunities. I feel like we get stuck waiting for it to roll in when someone needs to be there pressing it 24/7.”

The best chance for the Lions was with just over two minutes remaining when Comparato broke past defenders and was trying to chase down a pass, but collided with O-North’s goalkeeper, who came out of the net. Ventura shot the ball afterward, but it missed just wide.

A few minutes beforehand, Murrish made a point-blank save when an O-North attacker broke free in the box and fired a shot, giving the Lions confidence they could score a game-tying goal.

“I really thought we had it,” Billings said. “I mean, we had some really good attacks. We had some awesome shots on goal, good follows. It just didn’t happen.”

The Lions will travel to Topeka for their regular-season finale at 6:15 p.m. Friday.