Oct 6, 2005 By Rob Burchianti 4 min read

Laurel Highlands was dominating play against Uniontown during Wednesday night’s non-section boys soccer clash at Bill Power Stadium, but with 17 minutes left it had nothing to show for it. The Mustangs had peppered Red Raider goalkeeper Darren Webster with 13 shots on goal while giving up just two, and had registered 10 corner kicks to none by Uniontown.

Finally LH’s Cory Borland came to the rescue in stunning fashion.

Borland found the net twice in a span of 25 seconds and the Mustangs went on to a 2-1 victory over their cross-town rivals.

“It was an exciting game,” Red Raiders coach Matt Girod said. “Darren played fantastic tonight, but then they came up with those two quick goals and that was it. Laurel Highlands was like a swarm out there as far as pressure goes.”

Uniontown (3-10) took a 1-0 lead 9:45 in when Ryan Robowski headed in the rebound after T.C. Myers’ shot hit the crossbar. Robowski almost made it 2-0 less than seven minutes later when he hit the post.

The rest of the half was played mostly in Uniontown’s end as Laurel Highlands (8-6-1) watched chance after chance end up in futility.

Brett Workman had to be the most frustrated Mustang. He blasted a pair of shots over the crossbar and one off of it, had one boot deflected wide by Webster, he pushed another shot wide after taking a nice pass from Jerrett Pickens, and got one rolling kick behind Webster that was cleared by Uniontown’s Kyle Markwardt.

“We moved Kyle to sweeper for tonight’s game and he did an outstanding job,” Girod said.

Pickens found himself on a breakaway with two minutes left in the half, but Webster came far out of his goal to cut down the angle and made the save.

Earlier in the half, Webster made the save on a bouncing shot by Pickens and stopped Borland out front. Jason Lementowski also had a good chance broken up by the Red Raiders’ Davis Paul.

The only offensive chance Uniontown had in the final 23 minutes of the first half again came from Robowski, who was off the mark with a shot at the 3:15 mark.

Mustangs coach Brad Takach gave his team some important offensive advice at halftime.

“I basically told them that the only way they were going to score on Darren was with a one-on-one play, because he’s a fantastic goalkeeper. You can’t just take shots at him, because he’s going to keep making the save,” Takach said.

Robowski blasted a shot wide early in the second half, but then it was mostly up to Webster, who stood tall as LH had two chances by Dave Hough and one apiece by Darryl Gesso, Borland, Matt Turko, Lementowski and Pickens all come up empty.

Borland broke the ice by heeding Takach’s advice. He took a pass from Hough and juked past a charging Webster before neatly guiding the ball into the open net for the game-tying goal with 16:34 remaining.

“That picked us up and we started hustling even more,” said Borland, who is known just as much for his passing skills, having broken Deiter Davis’s all-time school record for assists by pushing his career total up to 17 this season.

Before the Red Raiders could breathe, Borland struck again, heading in a perfect crossing pass by Ryan Basescu with 16:09 left to put Laurel Highlands in front, 2-1.

“That was just a good pass by Ryan,” Borland said.

Webster prevented Basescu from adding to the lead with a save at the 9:10 mark.

Uniontown mustered one final chance in the closing seconds, but LH freshman goalkeeper Jordan Merchbaker stopped Myers’ long bouncing shot.

Laurel Highlands outshot Uniontown 16-3.

Both teams were coming off section matches on Tuesday. The Mustangs are back action again tonight when they travel to Indiana for a 7:30 game.