By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

Central-Carroll landed the first blow, but it was LaGrange winning by knockout in Tuesday’s region showdown at Callaway Stadium.

After falling behind 1-0, LaGrange’s boys’ soccer team scored the next six goals on the way to an impressive 6-1 victory.

LaGrange reached the halfway point of its Region 5-AAAA schedule with a 3-0 record.

After today’s road game against Cedartown, LaGrange will return to Callaway Stadium for Thursday’s showdown with Cartersville that will likely determine the region championship.

In Tuesday’s game, Central-Carroll was playing with plenty of energy in the early going, and it converted a corner kick into a goal to take a 1-0 lead.

The Grangers, who have so many different players who can put the ball into the net, weren’t worried.

“We just have to picture 0-0 again and play our game, and just get back at it,” said senior Robert Reese, who had one of his team’s six goals.

With 25:20 left in the opening half, Jimmy Cancino notched the tying goal, and the Grangers were off and running.

They added two more first-half goals to take a 3-1 lead at the break, and they scored three more goals in the second half to win going away.

“It’s just a matter of time if we settle down and play to our ability, and share the ball and move it quick,” LaGrange head coach Shane Pulliam said. “When we do that, we’re hard to stop, because we have a whole lot of people that can score in a lot of different ways.”

Johnny McDonald and Josue Recinos led LaGrange with two goals apiece.

Cancino and Reese chipped in with one goal apiece.

Recinos capped the scoring when he showed off some fancy footwork, dribbling past a handful of Central-Carroll defenders before banging the ball into the back of the net with 8:13 to play.

Winston Herrera, McDonald, Reese, Cancino, and Noah Whipple each had an assist.

“When we took over, they started getting worse, and they weren’t able to keep with us,” Pulliam said. “We could put different people in, and the level stays about the same, which is good, because we work on that.”

It was the first of three games in three days for the Grangers, and Pulliam has no doubt his players are physically up to the challenge.

“That’s why we’ve been doing seven-mile runs,” Pulliam said. “It gets our legs ready for weeks like this.”

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