Senior striker Oscar Cummins was one of the driving forces behind the Lincoln win, scoring three goals, a “hat trick,” to lead the soccer Patriots.
Even after tallying his 34th, 35th and 36th goals of the season – more than Lincoln scored as a team last year – and earning the win, Cummins was more disappointed than elated.
“We should have done a lot better, but we played good,” he said. “I think everybody just thought it was going to be easy and maybe they didn’t try their hardest.”
Cummins got Lincoln on the scoreboard early, scoring his first goal just 47 seconds after the kickoff. In fact, he handled all of Lincoln’s scoring in the first half. He took a shot off a Carter Dunn pass in the 17th minute and missed, but he tapped in the deflection to the right side of the net past Garrard keeper Jacob Phelps. With under a minute to go, Carl-Lewis Cummins fed Oscar on the fast-break and he took it to goal to put Lincoln up 3-1 at the break.
Despite Cummins’ early strike and a 3-1 halftime lead, Peters said she could see from the start that the soccer Pats weren’t playing their game.
“The boys did not come out like we had planned to come out. We came out very slow – very slow,” she said. “Fortunately, we came out with enough to strike first. I don’t think they played to their ability tonight, but we won.”
Kody Mullins, one of Lincoln’s five seniors along with Cummins, Brandon Jeffries, Everardo Adams and Zac Rice, added to the soccer Patriot lead when he scored off a Carl-Lewis Cummins corner kick 13 minutes into the second half. Carter Dunn made it a 5-1 ballgame in the 61st minute when he tipped the ball up over a defender then pushed it in for a goal.
Garrard (3-12-1) had little opportunity to score with Lincoln controlling the ball. Lincoln outshot Garrard 41-4.
“We controlled the game. We could have done a little bit more, but it’s hard to complain when you have a 5-1 victory,” said Peters.
A lack of shots on the Garrard end of the field meant a lonely day in the goal box for Lincoln keeper Zac Rice.
“I like it that way,” said Rice. “The past seasons have been dreadful. You go to a game and you’re not sure if you’re going to get 40 shots or a hundred shots on you. That’s not the funnest thing in the world.”
But Rice wasn’t just twiddling his thumbs in the goalie box while his teammates went to work on the opposite end of the field.
“Usually, whenever the ball is not on my side of the field, I watch and see what’s going on. I evaluate the other team’s players to see what I’m going to have coming up against me if they do have a chance to score,” he said.
Garrard tallied its lone goal of the game in the seventh minute on a long shot by Hagan Poynter from the right side of the field. Rice tipped the ball up on the save attempt but the shot dropped in behind him.
