Tight-knit group of seniors lead Lake boys soccer to greatness

Press Sports Editor
sports@presspublications.com

A special group of seniors helped Lake boys soccer put together one of its finest seasons as the Flyers won 15 matches and claimed the second district championship in program history.
In four years, this group won a league title, a district championship and had an undefeated regular season.
That’s the legacy the Lake seniors will leave behind for the soccer program.
“It’s a big group of seniors. I think there were nine of us. We’re like a family, we’ve been playing together since we were (young),” said Greyson Reed. “We’ve had the will to win, I think we had 15 losses in four years, and we worked together really well. I think that’s just the group of guys we have – the will to win and play together.”
Led by Reed, Travis Merrill and Mason Sneed, Lake went 15-3-2 with the highlight of its season coming in a 1-0 victory (via 10 penalty kicks) over Port Clinton in a Division II district final.
Goalkeeper Mitchell Maguire came through in the clutch for the Flyers, scoring a goal in the shootout and saving a Redskin attempt, giving Lake a 6-5 advantage in penalty kicks and the victory.
Merrill, Sneed, Jonathan Specht, Delfino Garcia and Evan Barta scored on penalty kicks in the lead up to Maguire saving the day.
Merrill led the team with 31 goals and 10 assists, Reed had 17 goals and nine assists while Sneed finished with nine goals and eight assists and Specht had two goals and nine assists. Maguire finished with 102 saves.
Merrill broke the record for goals in a season and Reed tied the record for goals in a match.
Before defeating Port Clinton, Lake beat rival Genoa, 3-0, in the district semifinals and Swanton, 4-0, in the sectional finals.
The season ended with an 8-1 loss to Liberty-Benton in the regional semifinals.
Some of the Flyers’ biggest wins in the regular season were against Genoa (6-0), Oak Harbor (3-1) and Bowling Green (5-1).
Lake went 6-1 in the Northern Buckeye Conference, falling just short of winning a league title.
Part of the reason for the success the team had was because of the bond among the seniors — Specht, Reed, Merrill, Brady Hayward, Kolton Nowicki, Xavier Lautenheiser, Derek Roggelin and Ethan Bradfield.
The captains were Reed, Merrill, Specht, Snyder and Nowicki, who filled in after Snyder got hurt.
“Just seeing the community come together to support us was very good to see. It was our first district final appearance in our program in 12 years, and our first regional appearance in 16 years. It was a good way to end a successful career for our senior class,” Greyson Reed said.
“It’s a big group of seniors. We’re like a family, we’ve been playing together since we were (young),” said Reed. “We’ve had the will to win — I think we had 15 losses in four years — and we worked together really well. I think that’s just the group of guys we have, the will to win and playing together.”
The team employed a 4-3-3 alignment.
Maguire was the goalkeeper with Hayward and Reed as the center backs with Specht and Nowicki as the outside backs. Lautzenheiser also saw time as a defender, as did Andrew Solomon and Grason Robertson.
Snyder was the holding midfielder, and Delfino Garcia replaced him after his injury. The other midfielders were Evan Barta and Keegan Perry.
Merrill, Sneed and Bradfield were two of the forwards, and Reed saw time at forward before being moved to defender. Roggelin, Brayden Arndt-Schimmell and Hector Sanchez also played forward.
Lake coach Brian Reed gave an overview of his team’s season.
“I thought we did pretty well,” he said. “We were heavily loaded with seniors and juniors. I think I had seven seniors starting, but we had an injury to a key player, Preston Snyder, and that kind of slowed us down, but we managed to get things (accomplished). A lot of things were adjusted throughout the season because of injuries.”