LEXINGTON — It was the signature victory Lexington coach Peter Them was hoping for and it put his Minutemen in the driver’s seat in the chase for the Ohio Cardinal Conference championship.

Lex scored a pair of second-half goals via set pieces for an emotional 2-0 win over Wooster in a battle of state-ranked teams at Lexington High School.

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The Minutemen (5-1-3, 3-0-1) were ranked fourth in Division II in the most recent Ohio Scholastic Soccer Coaches state poll, released Monday. The Generals (7-3, 3-1) were 14th in Division I.

“This was a huge one for us. That’s a great team over there,” Them said. “I’d been waiting for us to have a coming-out party. For us to come out and do what we did tonight, it was huge.

“This was a great team win.”

The match was scoreless at the half as Wooster couldn’t cash in on a couple of golden scoring opportunities midway through the first half. The Minutemen broke the ice in the 47th minute when Gage Potter got his head on a corner kick to the back post by Alex Depperschmidt for a 1-0 lead.

“In practice we work a lot on set pieces and finishing,” Potter said. “Most of our runners went from post and I went back post, so I was pretty wide open.”

Them wasn’t surprised to see the ball-hawking Potter finish.

“For him to win the ball and put it on frame, it was a heck of a finish,” Them said. “That’s what we’ve been waiting for. We needed that emotional boost.”

Lexington’s second goal came 10 minutes later and was remarkably similar to the first. This time, Dylan George’s corner kick to the back post found the foot of Will Perkins, who knocked it in without much resistance.

“It was almost the exact same,” Potter said. “We had three or four runners going front post and Will leaked back side and he was wide open.”

Wooster pressed forward for the final 23 minutes but Lexington’s defense was equal to the task. The shutout was the sixth of the season for the Minutemen.

“I knew that last 10 minutes was going to be an absolute track meet,’ Them said. “We disrupted Wooster just enough that they couldn’t get their bearings. Because of that we were able to continue what we started.

“We had to adjust our lineup and weather the storm.”

Both Lexington and West Holmes have conference games against Mansfield Senior and West Holmes remaining. Lex is the only team in the OCC without a conference loss.

“We control our own destiny in the conference,” Them said. “We got two more games in conference and if we want to win a conference championship we’ve got to go get after it.”