photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Sophomore Jasper Piepergerdes jumps for a header during a 5-4 win over Topeka High School in Lawrence on Tuesday, September 3.

The Lawrence High School boys soccer team was under no impression that this year would be easy.

Coming off a season that ended with the team finishing 11th in its conference, the Lions started with a road game against the defending 6A champion Olathe East. Aside from their first opponent, the Lions play in a tough Sunflower League. No game would be an easy win for this team.

The Lions started the season with a 0-0 tie, which considering the opponent was a great result. But the team already knew it had a strong, veteran defense. What it needed to see was some offense, and a 0-0 tie doesn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence in a team’s scoring prowess.

On Tuesday night, the Lions played Topeka High School at home. Opportunities were there to score early on, but the Lions couldn’t find the back of the net and fell to a 3-1 deficit at halftime. They were even down 4-1 after the first few minutes of the second half.

Asher Sikes said that the deficit was a wakeup call. He expected that the team might come out a little flat given the result of the Olathe East game, but the Lions weren’t playing their game. They weren’t possessing the ball, and it would only take about 10 minutes spent at a LHS soccer practice to realize how important controlling possession is to coach Joe Comparato and his team.

A three-goal deficit didn’t faze the team. The Lions got their second goal later in the second half, and then they pulled within a goal with 10 minutes left. That alone would have been an impressive feat to build upon. Being able to respond with a late push would’ve been a positive to take into the next game.

Then, with 2.4 seconds left, Sikes broke beyond the defense in the penalty area and popped the ball across the goal to the lower right corner for the team’s fourth goal. Again, that would have been an impressive feat to build upon.

But the momentum was all on Lawrence’s side. As the Trojans slowed down physically, the Lions came out stronger. The game went into a second overtime after a scoreless 10-minute first overtime. With four minutes left in the period, Sikes got a game-winning opportunity with a penalty kick. After checking on his teammate Patrick Sandefur, who took the hit to get the penalty kick, Sikes said he kind of blacked out. What he does remember is picking his spot, kicking and running with his team to celebrate the win.

In the postgame team huddle, one of the Lions shouted to his team that they know now that they can score. Five goals, including four from halftime to second overtime, will do that. The confidence in themselves at scoring is something the team didn’t necessarily have going into the season, but it sure is something they have now.

“The attackers do need some confidence,” Comparato said. “We struggled finishing in the game against Olathe (East) on Friday. We had some struggles finishing this game here. But being able to find the net in the second half made a big difference in our confidence.”

Sikes pointed to the number of freshmen who are getting crucial minutes through two games. While they’re good players with a lot of talent, they lack experience at the varsity level. Sometimes, they just need to see the ball go in the net. One freshman, Lincoln Beck, scored in Tuesday’s win. Sikes believes that there was a mental block on the team’s goals, and that once the team got its first goal, more would pour in.

“Once you get the confidence to do that, everything changes,” Sikes said.

The team knows they made the game harder than they needed to with their slow start. But they showed a lot of heart and fight, which is something Comparato notices and appreciates about them. Their strong will and hard finish is a testament to their conditioning, which is both a credit to Comparato pushing them during the summer and the team taking that conditioning seriously. And no matter how they got there, the Lions are 1-0-1.

“They play hard and they play as a unit,” Comparato said on Tuesday. “We struggled tonight with possession; we struggled controlling the pace of the game. We kind of won ugly, but we got the W.”

“Emotionally you want to be happy that we won, but we put ourselves in a spot we didn’t need to be in. I think that’s the takeaway — every team you come out and play is going to be good. I think they felt like they came out flat and weren’t ready to play, and they said we aren’t letting that happen again.”

The Lions still have a tall task ahead of them. No team is going to be an easy win in the league, and they’re going to have to scrap out tough wins in tough situations. Several more 100-minute games are likely in their future this year.

But they’ve proven to themselves that they’re made of the right stuff. They know what they can do and who they can play against. The Lions have seen both their offense and defense play a hard match and come out with positive results. Now, they have the confidence that they can play and beat anybody, and they’re ready to prove themselves to the rest of the state.