Spurred on by a three-goal second half, Howard earned a 3-1 victory over visiting Hammond on Friday night and snapped a two-game losing skid in the process.
Just one week removed from losing by six goals on its home field against Centennial, Lions' coach Nils Schroder said his group has done a nice job of refocusing.
"When we played Centennial, it was just a huge step backward for us. We didn't show up that day. But I thought on Tuesday against Mt. Hebron, even though we lost, we were much more competitive and we got back to playing how I know we can play," Schroder said. "Then tonight we brought some of that energy from the Hebron game with us, I thought. We came out full force and when we scored, we kept coming and didn't take anything for granted."
Howard goalie Brendan Hartlove, who made a couple big saves late in the contest, says the team was in need of result like this one.
"I mean (tonight) was huge. The crowd was great and that really kind of spurred us along. This going forward is just massive," he said. "We had a hiccup against Centennial and then we were able to get over that quickly with a great performance against Hebron. So for us to come out and get the 3-1 victory … we would have liked to get the shutout, but three points is three points.
"Moving forward this is a huge step for us."
While Howard (3-2, 4-3) saw a return to form of sorts to when it won back-to-back county games earlier this fall, Hammond (2-2, 3-4) saw its own two-game county winning streak snapped with the loss.
Early on the game was pretty even, with things being played primarily in the midfield and neither team scoring in the first half.
"There weren't really a lot of opportunities for either team before the half. We were playing defensively really well, but couldn't get it up into our attacking third," Schroder said. "So at halftime we really stressed finding that open space, finding the corners. We needed to take better advantage of our speed and getting some crosses, corner kicks and long throws — that's where we think we are as good as anyone."
The strategy worked, as 14 minutes into the second half Howard struck first. Mark Bruner finished off a feed from Kameron Shryock to make it 1-0 in favor of the Lions.
Then, roughly five minutes later, Howard tacked on another when Bruno Hammes de Carvalho finished a bouncing ball in traffic in front of the net.
Hammond countered with some dangerous chances over the next few minutes in the middle of the second half, but was unable to immediately cut into the deficit. That left the door open for a counter attack chance that Howard's Monssef Marakchi buried off a feed from Henrik Struck with 7:12 remaining in regulation.
Hammond did finally get on the board with just under five minutes left when Anthony Perez curled in a free kick to make it 3-1. But that's as close as the Golden Bears would get, with Hartlove making several diving stops in the closing minutes — including one as time expired — to lock up the two-goal win.
Howard is back in action Tuesday on the road against Wilde Lake, while Hammond will travel to play Long Reach the same day.