Lake’s Travis Merrill pushes the ball up field against Swanton on Thursday. The senior forward broke the program’s single-season goals record in the 4-0 win. (Nicholas Huenefeld | Sentinel-Tribune)
By Nicholas Huenefeld
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
MILLBURY — Travis Merrill scored twice on Thursday to lead the top-seeded Lake boys soccer team to a hard-fought 4-0 win over Swanton in a Division IV sectional championship inside Lake Community Stadium.
With the victory, the Flyers (13-2-2) advance to Monday’s district semifinal against Genoa at 5 p.m., which will also be played at Lake.
“Overall, we obviously could have done better,” Lake coach Brian Reed said. “We played a little bit better in the second half, but the first one is always a little about getting the nerves out and settling in. It was 4-0, though, and we’re happy with that.”
In leading Lake to the win, Merrill broke Lake’s single-season goals scored record.
His first tally, which came with 22:56 left in the first half, tied Mike Szymanski’s record of 29 from 2017. His second one, which he headed in off a corner from Jonathan Specht, was his 30th of the season.
“I couldn’t have done it without my team,” Merrill said. “These guys gave me the ball throughout the entire year. It’s all on them. I finish, but they have trust in me and give me the ball as much as they can.”
After Merrill’s first goal got Lake on the board, Xavier Lautzenheiser had a one-on-one chance against the keeper with 11:44 left in the half, but a great save was made.
In the 31st minute, Lake had two more shots saved, but Lautzenheizer went down with an injury in the next minute.
The Flyers recovered to produce five shots over the final eight minutes, including two from Delfino Garcia. However, four were saved and another from Merrill sailed high.
Swanton had a shot deflected wide to a corner with 30 seconds left and then had a potential game-tying chance go wide left with just a few seconds left in the half.
“I think they were a little nervous,” Reed said. “We played them in the regular season. I don’t know if that played into it a little bit. We also had another key injury, so we’re going to have to work around that and try to figure it out.”
The Flyers finished with eight shots over the final 12 minutes of the first half, including seven on goal.
In the final 40 minutes, Lake tallied 17 shots, including 11 on goal. Merrill had five of those, including three on frame. His third shot of the half, which came with 8:44 remaining, gave Lake a 3-0 lead.
“We possessed the ball a lot better (in the second half), and we were able to move forward,” Merrill said. “It was a little rough in the first half, but we got it together. It still wasn’t pretty overall, but we did what we needed to do.”
Greyson Reed had a match-best six shots in the second half, including three on goal. After his first two shots went high, Reed had a shot saved with 22:30 remaining, but quickly gathered another opportunity and sent a deep shot over the keeper’s head just nine seconds later to give his team a two-goal lead.
Swanton (2-12-3) had three shots following that, including back-to-back good looks with 13:52 left, but Merrill responded with his second goal. Then, just 21 seconds after that, Mason Sneed scored Lake’s fourth goal on an assist from Andrew Solomon.
Mitchell Maguire had six saves in goal for Lake.
“I think we did alright,” Brian Reed said. “We’re happy with the win. We have a couple days of practice in us. We’ll try to figure some things out and hopefully show up on Monday and play a little bit better game.”
