L-B gets great start, rolls past Perkins

NORWALK -- Liberty-Benton's start Wednesday is what coaches dream of. The experienced Eagles pushed Perkins back a step or two with two goals in the first three minutes of the game. Liberty-Benton hardly relented from there, defeating the Pirates 7-1 in a Division IV regional semifinal at Contractors Stadium in Norwalk. The Eagles improved to 17-3-1 and will face familiar foe Worthington Christian in Sunday's regional final at Marion Harding. "The start for us was huge," Liberty-Benton's Brahlen August said. "Strong starts are always really needed going into these kinds of games. That helped us the rest of the game." It was August that got the scoring barrage going early. After the Eagles missed a chance even earlier, August took a pass from Jairo Colina and rocketed it into the back of the net. Just 90 seconds later, it was Colina's turn. He took a pass from Trevor Gebhardt and fired a shot past Perkins goalie Danny Buga. That gave Liberty-Benton a 2-0 lead just 2:51 into the game. "We want to try to get out early," Eagles coach Aaron Troyer said. "We talked before, but our experience in this game can be a little tough for teams to come in and play from the start. We felt like we could take advantage of that if we got a lead early and put a little doubt in their mind." The teams played evenly from there until Colina scored off a throw-in with 23:42 to go in the half. The Pirates (14-6-1) got their footing a bit from there. Perkins got on the board when all-time leading scorer Titus Normington-Slay slid a shot past L-B goalie Kooper Leatherman. That cut the Eagles' lead to 3-1 with 10:01 left in the half. Instead of letting the Pirates build momentum, Liberty-Benton responded. Taden Troyer answered just 2:37 after the Normington-Slay goal to make it a three-goal lead again. August scored twice more in the final three minutes of the half to make it 6-1 at halftime. "We knew we couldn't give him any space because he would get a good chance off," said coach Troyer of Normington-Slay. "He was probably going to score if he got a good chance off. We let him get loose. "Us responding was huge because we did not want to let them any momentum going into half. Getting goals back was huge." The second half was played mostly even until Colina finished off his hat trick with 9:32 to play. That put the game in a running clock the rest of the way. "We've relied on Jairo a lot the last couple years," coach Troyer said. "He's an incredible player. I think he broke our career points record tonight. Brahlen came up big for us tonight. We have a couple really good players. It's hard to slow them all down." Liberty-Benton is hoping the third time is the charm when it faces Worthington Christian, the defending state champion. The Warriors eliminated L-B 4-0 on the same field a year ago. Two seasons ago, Worthington Christian defeated the Eagles 2-1 in a shootout en route to finishing as state runner-up. "We're going to have to get some film on them," coach Troyer said. "Sometimes it's tough to get film on them teams. They do a good job of not letting you see those clips. We're going to have to get better the next few days. "We're going to have to play the best game we've played all year to have a chance to move on."