By Mike Maltais
An always-tough Bridgeport team handed the Liberty Bell High School varsity boys’ soccer squad its first league loss, 3-1, on April 8 in the team’s first game after spring break. But the Mountain Lions bounced back to defeat Omak, 5-2, and the Chelan junior varsity, 4-0, in later non-league play.
“Bridgeport is the toughest league team we’ve played so far,” said coach Lincoln Post, adding that his team appeared to have lost some of its momentum during the 10-day hiatus.
In what was an evenly matched contest for most of the game, the Mustangs took an early lead but only enjoyed a 1-0 advantage at halftime.
The teams traded goals through the second half as junior striker Marty Larsen scored for the Mountain Lions, but Bridgeport struck for the third and final score just before the clock expired to give the Mustangs the two-point edge.
“We were pretty equal in shots on goal,” Post said, “But Bridgeport had a good goalkeeper who stopped several potential scores.”
Omak fades
The Mountain Lions came alive in the second half of non-league play against Omak last Thursday (April 10) to widen a 1-0 halftime lead to a 5-2 final by game’s end.
Scoring was evenly distributed among Larsen, Jorge Lara, Wil Chandler, Bram Wathen and Charlie Thornton-White.
Chelan shut out
Larsen used his head to direct a cross-field free kick from teammate Thornton-White into Chelan’s goal midway through the first quarter at Liberty Bell on Monday (April 14), to give the Mountain Lions the first of four goals to shut out the Goats’ junior varsity, 4-0.
Larsen, Thornton-White and Lara later added an unassisted goal apiece to slam the door on Chelan.
The Mountain Lions will entertain Oroville in league play at 4 p.m. on Thursday (April 17) before traveling to Manson on Tuesday (April 22) for their second encounter with the Trojans. Liberty Bell defeated the defending league champions, 7-2, in their league opener March 25.
