The home team Lynbrook Owls played host to Mepham HS in a friendly non-league match as they complete the toughest stretch of the season by playing their 5th game in 10 days. The Owls were hoping the opportunity to rest some key players and call on some of the reserves to step up and show some of their ability would be good for a team looking for answers.

For the 3rd time in as many games, the Owls conceded the first goal of the game and for third time in the last 4 loses it happened in the first 10 minutes of the match. In the 8th minute, Mepham’s Christian Kolb scored the first of his 3 match goals off a feed from teammate Giorgios Karousis past Lynbrook’s Jake Prince (2saves). 3 minute later, Kolb extended the Pirates lead to two off a feed from Mark Diener. The game remained that way until the 36th minute when Owl’s captain Edward Stradowski took a strong ball into the Mepham box and powered his way through to netting his first goal of the season past Pirate’s net minder Anton Maken (4 saves). The game went to the half with a 1 goal deficit for the host Owls.

The Owls made some adjustments at half and switched their formation hoping to secure the back end of the field while making some key substitutions on the offensive end to raise the intensity of the offense. The game ping ponged back and forth for the first 17 minutes of the second period until Mepham once again extended their lead to two when Dylan Tucitto collected a ball behind the Owls defense from teammate Jeronimo Morena and snuck the ball past Lynbrook’s Grayson Prestianni (2 saves).

The Owls answered the call again 9 minutes later in the 66th minute when junior Aiden Michaels stepped up to a lose ball on the left side of the field and sent it up over the Mepham defensive line where Jacob Wolcoff ran past the defense collected the ball and was able to slide it past Maken to pull the Owls within 1. 4 minutes later as the game entered the final 10 minutes of the match Mepham’s Brendan Ramirez snuck past the Lynbrook’ defense and defender Thomas Dunne, who had an exceptional game (Man of the Match), leaned a little too strong into Ramirez and dropped him at the 6 yard box. A penalty kick was awarded which Kolb converted to once again give Mepham a 2-goal lead. The Owls. for the third time in the game, answered again in the final minute of the game with an unassisted goal by junior Steven Najera.

Overall, the Owls played a spirited match and seemed to show themselves what they can do when they raise their effort and play with the fight they have been looking for. As they entertain their first multiple day practice stretch of the season since games commenced on 9/2, the hometown Owls will take a breath, rest up a bit and learn from the last week and continue to grow their game play as they look to end the first half of the season with a road win at Wantagh HS on Thursday. With a win, the Owls will end the first end of the season at 3-3 and in the hunt for a playoff berth.

Keep up the spirited and tough play Owls and we look forward to seeing you fly high!!

Photos from today’s game: https://lhssoccer.jalbum.net/v.%20Mepham/