Lakewood suffers loss to Fletcher

Lakewood girls lose 2-1

TALLAHASSEE -- Thursday night's rainout of the 5A girls state semifinal postponed the Neptune Beach Fletcher-St. Petersburg Lakewood match to Friday morning

Too bad the Spartan offense failed to show up until too late in the rescheduled contest.

Lauri Tondreault's goal with less than a minute left cut the Senators' lead in half before time ran out on Lakewood in a 2-1 loss. The Spartans never mustered much of an offense and could have lost by a larger margin if not for the solid goalkeeping of Kelly Reinthaler and a shot that hit the post.

Lakewood coach Darlene Lebo was displeased with the match, but not the season. A rebuilding season was anticipated as Lakewood (19-3-3) lost six seniors from last season's team.

Reaching the state final four, Lebo said, "was quite a surprise. The first game of districts was a completely different team that took the field."

Lakewood, a state champion in 1992 and semifinalist in 1993 and 1996, didn't do badly in the regionals either with two shutouts in three games.

"We can hold our heads up high that we got this far," said Reinthaler, who had five saves against Fletcher, one a dive to her right in the 61st minute.

That save came a minute after Valerie McEvoy's 20-yarder beat Reinthaler to the left corner to give Fletcher a 2-0 lead.

Lakewood countered a bit too late. After the game clock was stopped at the 2-minute mark, Tondreault corraled a through ball from Marisa Georgiades and found herself alone in front of Fletcher keeper Sally Miller.

"Marisa sent a perfect ball to me," Tondreault said. "(Miller) was standing there with her legs spread apart."

So, naturally, Tondreault slid a shot under Miller for the goal.

Lakewood fell into an early hole when Lauren Rickerson took a cross from Tiffany Waters on the left side and scored after five minutes.

With the exception of the last minute, the Spartans never seriously threatened.

"We couldn't get anything off," said Marissa Venuti, who tallied 44 goals this season but came up empty against Fletcher. "I was more frustrated with the fact we just kept kicking the ball."

"We've got an awful lot of young girls on the team," said Lebo, alluding to seven freshmen and five sophomores. "I don't know if it was nerves or what. They played a lot of panic ball."
-- STEVE LEE

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