Leviathan keeps up pressure, dominates in 5-0 win

AVON — Lorain County FC knew if it kept up the tempo eventually it would wear down Erie Sports Center. The Leviathan dominated time of possession and eventually broke through in a huge way with four second-half goals during a 5-0 win at ForeFront Field on Monday evening. "We talked at halftime about it being a 90-minute game," Leviathan coach Blake New said. "We knew they were shorthanded in terms of substitutions, so we wanted to keep the game fast and the tempo high and to press. The cloud cover actually helped because it was pretty hot in the first half." The playoffs may be out of reach, but Lorain County had plenty to play for. Erie Sports Center (0-12-0) was chasing its first win, or tie, of the season. Lorain County (6-4-1) was not about to let that happen on its home field. Lorain entered Monday fourth in the Great Forest division and eliminated from the USL2 playoffs. At most two from the division will advance to the postseason. The Leviathan will try to play spoiler in the regular-season finale when it hosts Steel City FC, the division leader at 7-0-3, on Saturday at 7 p.m. "It's always nice to play at home," New said. "We've had two tough road games and unfortunately lost our way in the playoff battle, but we want to win for our fans here. We want to finish the season strong and build something for next season and the year after. Some of these young kids we have on our bench now, we want them playing for us five years from now." The Leviathan finally broke through in the 32nd minute of the first half. A short corner kick set up a nice through to Domenic Ruggiero, who was set up with an easy tap shot off a rebound to give Lorain a 1-0 lead. "It took us a couple of minutes to get on the board," Ruggiero said. "I kind of just sat there and just tapped it in off a header. With this great crowd here, to score a goal and make the crowd happy, it meant the most. We're coming off a losing streak, so to get a win today was huge. We have our last game on Saturday so we want to end on a win." Lorain had a pair of nice opportunities to pad its lead in the final seven minutes of the first half. Stefan Velickovic found San Nam in the middle of the box, but he couldn't finish. Four minutes later, Jordan Cheetham was given some space to work with a nice through, but missed the shot wide left. Erie almost got the equalizer right before half, but Dario Baudo's header off the corner kick sailed over the goal. The Leviathan kept Erie goalkeeper Riccardo Strohecker busy in the second half, recording 12 shots, seven on goal, with three corner kicks. Their first two on goal were saved by Strohecker, but Tamas Nagy gave Lorain some breathing room in the 72nd minute when he buried a nice feed into the left corner for the Leviathan's second goal. Cheetham essentially iced the game four minutes later with Lorain County's third goal. Erie only got off one shot in the second half, coming on a header off a corner kick that sailed wide left. Nagy completed his hat trick with two more goals in the final eight minutes. "Tamas hits a really heavy ball," New said. "When you put him in tight spaces he's going to make things happen. I just joked with him he played for 15 minutes and he got a hat trick." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.