Leopards Play Devil’s Advocate in Opening Day 7-0 Victory

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Louisville 7, Crestwood 0

Would you believe me if I told you that the Crestwood Red Devils defeated the Louisville Leopards 4-0 in Mantua last year?  Not if you were at Louisville Leopards Stadium Tuesday night.  Louisville tore apart Crestwood to earn a convincing 7-0 opening night win over the Red Devils.  Kyle Baker and Harrison Raub led the Leopards with two goals a piece.

Raub’s first goal came on a breakaway eight minutes into the contest.  Raub pushed by a defender and powered the ball into the top right corner of the net to give the Leopards a 1-nil lead.  A defensive struggled ensued for nearly the entire rest of the first half.

Finally, the Leopards broke the drought when Riley Groves launched a corner kick off of a Crestwood defender on the right edge of the goal box.  Leopard defender Cody Gotshall redirected the deflection towards the goal where a fired up Baker buried it home for the score with 2:56 remaining in the first half.

In the second half, Louisville opened up their advantage.  Groves again delivered a beauty into the goal box from the corner.  The ball deflected off a Crestwood defender and Michael Lautner pounded the ball off the goalie and into the net for the score.  Following that, Groves decided to get on the board himself by netting a free kick from just outside the penalty box to make it 4-0 Louisville.

With under 18 minutes left in the contest, Groves delivered the ball ahead down the left sideline.  Receiving the pass was Baker who dribbled to draw the goalie towards the left side of the goal which left Raub wide open in the center of the goal box.  Baker delivered the pass, Raub made it 5-0.

Baker would pluralize his goal count at the 10:17 mark when he one-timed a Groves corner kick Beatty's Sports Grey Louisville Athletics T-Shirtinto the net to put the Leopards up 6-0.  Baker then delivered the assist to Paul Fox’s goal a little over two minutes later.  Fox broke free in the penalty box and delivered a strike to the top center of the net to give Louisville their seventh and final score.

With the win, the Leopards even the all-time series with the Red Devils 3-3-1.  Louisville will next face a team that they have never beaten when they host GlenOak Thursday.  But after dropping the Devils by an 11-point swing from a year ago, confidence is high at LHS.

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UP NEXT: The Leopards will host the GlenOak Golden Eagles on Thursday, August 23 at 5:00 PM at the Soccer Field.  The Leopards have never beat the Golden Eagles and are 0-8-1 against them all-time.  GlenOak defeated visiting Louisville last season 8-0 on August 27, 2011.  Here is a look at the all-time series:

Game Year Location W-L-T Louisville GlenOak
1 9/20/2003 Away L 0 3
2 9/23/2004 Home L 0 2
3 10/6/2005 Away L 0 3
4 10/5/2006 Home L 2 3
5 10/4/2007 Away L 1 4
6 10/2/2008 Home T 1 1
7 8/27/2009 Away L 1 7
8 8/26/2010 Home L 1 3
9 8/27/2011 Away L 0 8

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