Lely Wins District

Winning the Class 5A District 12 soccer title is a big deal. It’s considered the area’s toughest district, and Golden Gate and Lely are the usual combatants in the finals. Golden Gate entered the Wednesday, January 31 final on a three-year district championship winning streak. They had lost just once this season. Lely came as the 4-seed but riding a five-game winning streak. All the Trojans did was knock off Gulf Coast (5 seed) 1-0 and undefeated Barron Collier (1 seed) 3-1 to get to the final. They outlasted Golden Gate (2 seed), 1-0, in Wednesday’s emotional final at Titan Stadium. Lely coach Robbie Schank, who has led Lely to 13 district finals appearances in his 30 years as head coach, was thrilled to bring the district title back to Lely.

 “There's three seasons,” said an elated Robbie Schank after Wednesday’s game, “there's preseason, there's regular season, and then there's Lely boys' soccer season - and that's the postseason. We've been here five out of the last six times, and we're very proud of that. We’re keeping the tradition alive."

Both schools’ fan bases were in playoff form. Roars from both sides showered the field as the Trojans and Titans took turns attacking each other’s goal through a scoreless first half. Schank thought the lively crowd and the magnitude of the game took his squad a while to get used to.

“We came out a little flat,” Schank said, "nerves play a big part. Golden Gate-Lely always brings on a big crowd. Any time you're in the playoffs, you're gonna get those crowds. We won the district championship in 2019. Regional championship in 2020. Regional championship in 2021. In 2022, we lost here, 4-3, in the district semifinal. We got redemption tonight against Golden Gate. We got the district championship and stopped their four-peat. It's a pretty good feeling right now. It's probably the best feeling in the world, being the champs again. We've been working really hard all season to get to this point, and it's just good to see that we're finally rewarded.”

Lely came out strong in the second half and scored the game’s only goal with 37:12 left. It was a nice piece of teamwork by the Trojans. 

"I think our halftime talk really gave us a second opportunity,” Schank said. “I told them we needed to play our game. We were playing the old-style Lely from the regular season, and we needed to play that championship soccer like we have been doing for the last six games. That goal got the party started for us. Emiliano Nicasio gave it to Junior (Mario Guzman), who passed to my captain, Alessandro Sarasini, who scored.

With just over seven minutes left on the clock, Guzman appeared to score a second Lely goal on an in-close header but was called offside. As the game clock wound down, shouts of Vamos! (let’s go) and Go GG! Go GG! rained down from the Golden Gate crowd. Lely fans started leaving their seats and lining up along the sideline fence in anticipation. Every shot on goal - eight in all - that was stopped by Lely goalie Tony Fuentes was met with roars from the crowd.

"Our Keeper is our MVP,” Schank said matter-of-factly. “Tony Fuentes has been lights out all season long and especially during the playoffs so far. A shutout against Gulf Coast and holding top notch Barron Collier to one late goal in our 3-1 victory, to shutting out a very high-scoring Golden Gate last night. He is our showstopper.” 

Despite winning the district championship, the Trojans (12-5-5) go into the regional tournament as a five-seed. They travel to play Cape Coral Mariner (17-6-3) on February 13 at 7:00 PM. Barron Collier (11-1-2), Naples (12-4-1), and Golden Gate (13-2-6) drew the region’s top three seeds.

Schank feels his team is hitting its stride in the playoffs. 

"This team can go all the way,” Schank said confidently. “We've just got to continue to play better each game than we did the prior game. And we’ll learn from our lessons today. In the first half, we didn't come out better than the last time we played, and luckily, we did just enough in the second half to get the win.”