Liberty’s boys soccer team won their first of three matches this week and raised their winning percentage above .500 with a 3-1 victory over East Stroudsburg South on Sept. 11 at Liberty.

“We were just trying to match the energy we had against Central. We came out really good that game. After the loss to Northampton, there’s been a culture change, so we’ve been trying to come out with a lot of energy, and that was kind of our game plan,” said Liberty forward Josh Lee, who scored the first goal for the Hurricanes in the 16th minute. “[Diego Monteiro Almeida] played it through, and the defender missed the ball.”

East Stroudsburg South came up with the equalizer off a corner kick that was initially cleared by Liberty defender Tanner Horvath.

“On the first one, I cleared it away, and it bounced pretty much right to number 5’s (Kondwani Keitt) head, and I was trying to get back over to the right side, and then someone lost their mark, and it just got past me,” Horvath said.

Liberty coach Jason Horvath took exception to the goal, less about the point and more about the cause.

“It was a silly goal to give up, only because we created the situation ourselves,” he said. “We have to be careful. We got called for some fouls on the attacking end while they’re facing their own end line...We could’ve let that ball bounce off somebody, possibly, for a corner, or a goal kick...We could’ve avoided that situation.”

But the Hurricanes took back the lead heading into halftime on a goal by Max Espinosa assisted by Horvath on a free kick.

“I was aiming for [Max]. I saw him pointing to the ground, so I played it right to him, and I knew it was going in,” Horvath said. “Hopefully, we can finish the league strong, get some more wins. We got above .500 tonight (3-2-1), and hopefully, we can finish out the season well.”

East Stroudsburg South goalkeeper Vincent Iracane was bombarded by Liberty’s strikers for the first nine minutes of the second half, eventually conceding a goal by Dylan Lewis.

“Their goalkeeper made a ton of saves in the second half,” Coach Horvath said. “We saw, when they played the ball from one side of their back line to the other, opportunities to step in there. The ball wasn’t moving very quickly, it was pretty obvious where it was gonna go next, so we were trying to take those passes away, and we did. Now, we just have to keep the ball low and maybe score some goals. We could’ve opened this thing up, and unfortunately, he made save after save after save, and we couldn’t, but we wound up getting the win, and that’s what matters.”

Monteiro Almeida took several shots on goal throughout the match but all were deflected.

In the 70th minute, Brian Pavloski kicked the ball long for the Cavaliers while Keitt yelled for Rowan McAllister to run. McAllister chased it downfield and took a nice shot from the right side, but it was saved by Liberty keeper Hadi Ali.

“We have two more games this week, and we were trying to put the game to bed pretty early,” said Lee.

“We came out as hard as possible (in the second half) and tried to press for the goal early on and we got it.”

Also on Sept. 11, Freedom hosted Whitehall and defeated the Zephyrs, 2-0.

Dom Roszkowski and Corey James scored the Patriots’ goals on assists by Michael Deluhery. Freedom goalie Micah Lawser had the clean sheet.