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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 11, 2002
EAST LAKE -- From the beginning, East Lake was running behind, from the coach who was tardy to warmups, to the offense that showed up late in the second half.
Despite the delays, East Lake (2-1) took care of Clearwater 3-1 on Tuesday.
Clearwater (5-2) struck first. Brian Schriver took the ball past diving Eagles keeper Andrew McMullin, who made three saves, to give the Tornadoes a 1-0 lead with less than five minutes to go in the first half. It was one of four Clearwater shots in the first half, but the Tornadoes would manage just two the rest of the game.
The Eagles answered with under 20 minutes left when David Langley maneuvered through the Clearwater defense to tie it.
With under two minutes left, Chris Cheredar took the ball downfield to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead. Cheredar added another goal just before the whistle for the final score.
"There was a lot of pressure on us as we ran out of time," Cheredar said. "I worked hard all game to get a goal in a game that was important to us.
"We wanted to go into the winter break with two straight wins, and we accomplished one of those tonight."
East Lake coach Frank Coorey thought the game was at 7 p.m. and arrived at 6:15, just in time to put the Eagles through a hurried warmup to prepare for the 6:30 start. He said after the game he wasn't worried about his late-arriving offense. "That's the way we play," Coorey said. "We haven't played in 21/2 weeks, and this was only our third game of the season."