Lake Park bounces back, beats Metea Valley
It didn't come right away this week, but there came a certain point when Lake Park coach Chris Roll believed his team was ready for Friday night's road trip to Metea Valley.
“At the beginning of the week, we struggled in practice. The kids are young and were having a hard time moving on from a loss. But during Wednesday practice they played physical. They played well, I knew we had taken a step forward,” Roll said.
After an almost one hour lightning delay, the Lancers came out and did what they had to do on offense and defense and beat the Mustangs 30-0 to move to 1-1 on the season.
Defense put Lake Park's first points on the board. Anthony Beacom sacked Metea quarterback Patrick Straub in the end zone for a safety just under five minutes into the game.
On the Lancers' subsequent possession, Jordan Colon dashed for 32 yards on the third play of the drive and then David Hardwick capped the drive off on the following play with a 4-yard run. T.J. Kutil's extra point made it 9-0 and that scored held at the end of the first quarter.
A 7-play drive was wrapped up when Colon hit end zone on a 3-yard pass play from quarterback Dylan Curry with 8:23 remaining until halftime.
It was the first of two touchdowns scored by Colon.
“We played a lot faster, a lot looser,” Colon said. “We were too nervous. Getting the momentum at the start was important otherwise we could have stayed flat.”
Defense scored Lake Park's remaining points of the first half. Isaac Moore got his own quarterback sack in the end zone for the team's second safety with 2:48 remaining. Then he recovered a fumble at the Metea 20 and converted it into a TD with just 31 seconds left.
“Our defense was relentless. There were the interceptions, the fumble recoveries. It was coming from all sides,” Roll said.
Almost midway through the third quarter, a bad snap on a Metea punt attempt put Lake Park on the Mustangs 27. On the second and final play of the drive, Colon scored on a 13-yard run. That TD and Kutil's extra points were the final points by the Lancers on the evening.
Metea (0-2) put together an 11-play drive on its subsequent possession and drove down to the Lake Park 11 thanks to some key runs by Colin Wilcox and Straub passes to Austin Frederick. The Mustangs drove to the Lake Park 20 in the final quarter.