LEXINGTON — For the first 20-plus minutes, Lexington played the beautiful game against Ontario in a boys’ soccer season opener, building a 2-0 lead.
The Warriors made it a physical struggle the remainder of the way with the Minutemen, a state semifinalist a year ago, escaping with a 3-1 victory on Friday night.
“I think the biggest thing is just these guys haven’t played a competitive match in nine months or whatever it is, you know, losing their spring season, losing their summer stuff,” Lexington coach Pete Them said.
“This is the first competition we’ve had since the state semifinals. So there’s gonna be a lot of rust and it’s going to be ugly and that’s exactly what it was,” he said.
“So you gotta take the good with the bad and you got to learn from your mistakes and just keep moving forward,” Them said.
The match was played at the football stadium, a field about 11 yards narrower than the normal Lexington soccer pitch, due to the newly enacted COVID-19 seating restrictions that required quick moves by school athletic officials.
Senior All-American Ryan Parker, who had 33 goals and 20 assists last year, scored the first two Lexington goals, the first with 29:37 left in the first half with a sensational solo effort and the second about 12 minutes late on a pass from senior Teddy Togliatti.
The Minutemen, 21-2 a year ago, didn’t score again until the 1:11 mark of the second half, a goal by senior Trevor Fehr on a feed from Parker.
Ontario’s goal came with 26 seconds left in the first half on a header by sophomore James Stewart off a corner kick from junior Ethan McCoy.
The Warriors didn’t find the net again, but they disrupted the Lexington offense with a physical style of play.
“We’ve got 14 juniors and last year, most of those juniors were sophomores playing varsity,” Ontario coach Chris McClenathan said. “Last year, (Lexington) just pushed us around.
“So one of the things in the off season that we keyed in on was getting stronger, getting more physical and we focused on that,” McClenathan said.
Them agreed the Warriors got his Minutemen off balance.
“Honestly, this smaller field doesn’t really play in our favor and our style. We weren’t able to use our speed the way we want to. And so, because of that, it’s an equalizer for sure. You close things down and get everybody on top of each other. There’s going to be some physical play, you know, the body slamming and stuff like that,” Them said.
Both coaches agreed it was just great to play a soccer match after so much uncertainty about the return of contact sports this fall, a decision not made by final by Gov. Mike DeWine until a few days ago.
“It felt great. I didn’t know if we were ever going to make it to this night. We just didn’t know. You didn’t know until we actually blew the whistle (tonight) that we were gonna get this off,” Them said.
“It felt great for our guys (and for Ontario). The opportunity to play them is just fantastic. It means a lot and I did not ever let them forget that all summer … and everything we were doing, we busted our butts for two, three months, to try to figure this out.
“You know, they lost a spring season. Some of those guys that were seniors graduated without a (spring) season. So I said, if we get two games in or five or 10, enjoy this moment, enjoy this ride and make the best of it,” Them said.
