photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence High School senior Charlie Carr (12) celebrates after scoring in the first half of the Lions game Tuesday night against Olathe South at LHS.

After posting a 1-2-1 record last week, Lawrence High’s boys soccer coach Mike Murphy knew his team needed to challenge itself and be better than it was Saturday in a five-goal loss against Olathe Northwest.

The Lions responded to the challenge with a 3-2 victory over Olathe South on Tuesday at LHS. The win improved their record to 5-5-1.

“I feel pretty good,” Murphy said of his team’s performance. “We knew that wasn’t us (on Saturday) and we responded really well.”

Seniors Cain Scott, Charlie Carr and Ebrahim Diagne each scored a goal for the Lions. Murphy said the goal he set for his team was to score three goals because he felt that’s what would be needed to win the game.

“When we got the ball to the attacking third and played the ball to the middle our forwards were in position,” Murphy said. “We scored off a set piece, and we love to get corners and set pieces because we feel we have a pretty good advantage off that.”

Once the Lions got their third goal, scored by Scott in the 59th minute, it gave them a comfortable 3-1 lead, but that wouldn’t last long.

Olathe South senior Matt White had the play of the night just one minute later as he put the ball in the top corner of the goal from outside of the box to cut the score to 3-2.

“I mean jeez, what can you do?” Murphy said. “That’s just a beautiful shot.”

But that was the last shot that got past LHS senior goalie Apramay Mishra. The Lions don’t keep track of saves, but Murphy estimated that Mishra made 10 or 11 stops, including about five saves that Murphy had an “oh my gosh” reaction.

At least a few of those spectacular saves were in the final 21 minutes with the Lions trying to hold onto a 3-2 lead. Mishra made two diving saves, and another where his body was actually inside the net but he was able to keep the ball just outside of the net.

The Falcons were constantly in scoring position in the last 10 minutes, but the Lions were able to do just enough to hold the lead.

“That became their next spurt,” Murphy said. “With about 10 minutes left you could feel that spurt coming on. Our report from them was they have spurts of energy and when they do that you have to match that.”

But it was junior Robbie Kleibohmer who made the play to preserve the win for the Lions in the final minutes. An Olathe South shot was rolling towards an open Lawrence High net but Kleibohmer caught up to the ball and cleared it to preserve the lead.

“We had some really nice saves at the end,” Murphy said. “Robbie (Kleibohmer) did a really nice job of clearing the ball on that line that was going in.”

Lawrence High will travel across town to take on Free State in the City Showdown at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.