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LP falls short against unbeaten Chazy

Lake Placid goalkeeper Jacob Novick leaps above a crowd to haul down a ball during the opening half of Thursday’s match against Chazy. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

LAKE PLACID — For nearly 60 minutes, Lake Placid’s boys were able to hold unbeaten Chazy off the scoreboard in Thursday’s Northern Soccer League Division II match. The Eagles, however, came up with two late goals to keep their perfect record intact.

Riley Hansen netted what proved to be the game-winner with 18:01 remaining in the game, and Alex Chapman added an insurance tally with 4:14 left on the clock as Chazy improved to 7-0.

Despite seeing their opponent dominate possession for long stretches at a time, the Blue Bombers did generate a handful of good scoring chances against one of the top soccer programs in the North Country.

“We’re not in a place where we’re ready to go out and play Chazy, but effort-wise, we matched Chazy for an hour, and that’s a step in the right direction,” Blue Bombers coach Stuart Hemsley said. “These are young players, and if they learn from their mistakes, I’m doing my job and they’re doing theirs. When you’re learning against Chazy and only lose 2-0, that’s a good lesson.”

Blue Bombers goalkeeper Jacob Novick came up big in the first half by stopping a breakaway to help keep the match scoreless at halftime.

Lake Placid’s Alex Ichiro goes for a head ball during the second half of Thursday’s game. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

Two turnovers during the later stages of the match led to Chazy’s goals. On the first goal, the Blue Bombers were unable to clear the ball from their end of the field. Hansen gained control and ripped a shot into the left side of the net to put the Eagles on the board. They took advantage of a turnover deep in Lake Placid’s end of the field for their second goal, a shot from in close by Chapman off an assist from Tristan Conners.

Chazy finished with a 21-8 edge in shots, but Hemsley said a number of the Eagles attempts were well off the mark. Ben Norcross finished with seven saves to earn the shutout win for Chazy. Hemsley credited Novick with five stops in the contest.

“I think we had some really good chances in the first half that we didn’t finish on, but we’re not surprised,” Chazy coach Rob McAuliffe said. “They have a good goalie, and defensively they play very well. When you play a tough team like Lake Placid, you have to go out there and earn it, and we did tonight.

“We are used to teams playing well against us defensively and we have to break them down,” McAuliffe added. “We just try to keep possessing the ball, keep generating chances and hope you get one. We got two in the end.”

The game was the final time that senior Duncan Seggar was playing in a Blue Bombers soccer uniform. The defender was honored at halftime and will now be heading to Europe to continue his career in the sport of luge.

“We still are down a couple of players,” Hemsley said. “We’re losing Duncan Seggar, it was his senior game. He’s off to Austria to represent USA in luge, so we’ll have to shuffle the cards again.”

Although Hemsley wasn’t happy that two defensive breakdowns led to Chazy’s goals, he is generally pleased with the way his young team is playing. He pointed out that seven starters on the field are new to varsity soccer.

“We’ve let in four goals in four games, and today, two came in the last 20 minutes,” Hemsley said. “We just need to keep our concentration because we don’t have a natural goal scorer. They were two scrappy goals, not two typical Chazy goals. We had a free kick at the edge of our box and five seconds later, they score. We give the ball up in our end, and they score again. That’s just losing concentration.”

Lake Placid fell to 1-3-1 with the setback and next plays Tuesday at Willsboro. The two teams battled to a 1-1 deadlock in their first meeting.

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