- February 7, 2026
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LAKEWOOD RANCH — The Lakewood Ranch High boys soccer team hasn’t lost a match since Nov. 9, and rarely do the Mustangs find themselves trailing in the first half.
Lakewood has only allowed 14 goals this season — one of which came in the first half of the Class 5A-District 8 championship versus Riverview Jan. 22.
Trailing 1-0 after 40 minutes, the Mustangs received some simple advice from coach Vito Bavaro: forget about the goal, score two goals and win the game.
The Mustangs responded with three goals in the second half en route to a 3-1 come-from-behind victory and their fourth straight district championship.
Lakewood got on the scoreboard in the 46th minute when junior midfielder Tyler Puhalovich, who has been slowed by injury most of the season, scored the equalizer.
“All we needed was one goal,” sophomore forward Pablo Vargas said. “Once we got that goal. we were going to get control of the whole game.”
Vargas scored the Mustangs two final goals in the span of four minutes to preserve the victory.
“I was getting frustrated,” Vargas said. “Coach gave us the normal speech and we came out and played like he told us. You saw the result.”
Riverview senior defender Etienne Behan scored the Rams lone goal of the game on a free kick in the first half from about 40 yards out that sailed just past the outstretched hands of Lakewood goalkeeper Liam Bramley.
As the district champion, Lakewood will play host to Wiregrass Ranch in a Class 5A-Region 2 quarterfinal match at 7 p.m. The Rams will travel to Palm Harbor University, which beat Wiregrass Ranch 2-1 in overtime of the Class 5A-District 7 final. The winners will advance to the regional semifinals Feb. 2.
“We can’t think in our minds that this is the end of the season,” Bavaro said. “This is the beginning for us. We want to make that run. We want to get to the Final Four. We want to win a state championship. We’ve tasted it a couple times, getting close. We’re going to try to do it.”
Contact Jen Blanco at [email protected].
