Boys soccer: Firelands makes it 6-for-6 in Lorain County League titles with 5-0 win over Wellington

SOUTH AMHERST — Domination was the word of the night for the Firelands boys soccer team. The Lorain County League has been around since 2019 and the Falcons have been crowned outright league champion every year. Their latest title came thanks to Wednesday's 5-0 win over Wellington. The Falcons improved to 12-2-1, 10-0 in the league with two LCL games left. It was the 36th straight league game without a loss for the Falcons, whose only non-win in that span was a 3-3 tie with Keystone last year. Firelands is an incredible 50-3-3 in the six years of the LCL. "It obviously feels amazing to win this again," Falcons coach Bill Yakunovich said. "We have young guys coming up that are excited about what we're doing, they know we've won the conference a lot and they want to keep it going." The Dukes (10-2-2, 7-2-2) came out like a team that needed a win behind an offense that pushed hard. In the first minute, Spencer Brasee had a good look from just outside the box on the left side, but his hard strike was gathered in by Falcons goalie Ashton Lutz, who finished with five saves. The Falcons weathered the early Dukes rush and scored the only goal it would need when Mikey Janosik took the ball deep toward the end line on the right side and sent a centering pass to Jayden Becker, who got the ball past Dukes goalie Robert Barnes (four saves) at 34:35 of the first half. "It was a close game (1-0) the last time we played them, so it was great to be able to get that first goal to get us going," Becker said. Firelands added to its lead with just 11 seconds left on the clock when Wellington committed a foul just outside the box in the middle of the field. Janosik took what was basically a penalty kick and buried the ball in the upper-left 90 for a 2-0 advantage. "There's pressure every game in this conference, everyone wants to be the team to knock us off," Janosik said. "I've won the league every year that I've been here, and I think we have a lot more that we want to accomplish the rest of the year." The Dukes tried to climb back into the game but their available shots in the second half came mostly from distance and didn't end up anywhere near the goal. They finished with no shots on goal in the final 40 minutes after getting five in the opening half. Firelands finished off the win with three goals in the second half. Becker added two, to give him 18 for the season, and Zach Zimmerman scored on a header off a restart by Carter Jones. "Wellington really came out fast and strong and had a lot of quick passes early on that gave us some problems," Yakunovich said. "Getting that early score really calmed us down and we settled into the game and could relax a little bit." Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or jbrady_ct@yahoo.com. Firelands 5, Wellington 0 GOALS: (F) Jayden Becker 3, Mikey Janosik, Zach Zimmerman ASSISTS: (F) Janosik, Jesse Yakunovich, Carter Jones, Colin Elkin SHOTS ON GOAL: Wellington 5, Firelands 9 SAVES: (W) Robert Barnes 4; (F) Ashton Lutz 5 CORNER KICKS: Wellington 4, Firelands 4 FOULS: Wellington 6, Firelands 3 HALFTIME: Firelands, 2-0