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By CAREY FREEMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 7, 2000
LECANTO -- It may not have been the kind of game that stirs the emotions of the soccer purest, but for Lecanto, all that mattered was the bottom line: Lecanto 2, Springstead 1.
"That was the worst soccer match I've ever seen in 42 years in this game. Bottom line," Springstead coach John Bifulco said. "They play a boot-ball game and wait for a team to make mistakes. We built the attack up and couldn't finish. They played ugly. We played ugly. They won."
The Eagles (4-2) made their first mistake in the fourth minute when they allowed Lecanto center/forward Amber Gidden to slip behind the defense and into the goal box. Gidden made Springstead pay for the defensive miscue with a deft pass to Angela Bowman, who slipped the ball to the left of Eagles' keeper Stefanie Hibbert for a 1-0 lead.
Springstead, however, refused to lose quietly and slowly began to take control by the end of the first half. The Eagles knotted the score in the 34th minute when Christina Magid slipped a near-perfect cross to Chrissi Tapia, who put the tying kick over the head of Lecanto keeper Trish Chenowith.
The teams remained tied through much of the second half as offensive woes plagued both teams. Springstead had several near misses, but the Panthers (5-1-2) were the ones who made the most of their chances when Bowman took a cross from Alicia Short, turned and left-footed the ball past Hibbert.
"That's the best game we've played all year," Lecanto coach Kevin Towne said. "We know Springstead is a great program and we were told they would come in and play hard. These girls just stepped up."