COURTLAND-Southampton Academy jumped out to a 3-0 lead and held on for a 7-4 victory over Windsor High School in a non-district soccer game Thursday.

Southampton Academy (5-5-1), which has not typically started games strong this season, took it to Windsor from the first whistle. The Raiders dominated the offensive side of the ball for much of the game, especially in the first 20 minutes.

The Raiders opened the scoring when Robert Marks scored off a pass from Tim Chrysostomou in the opening minutes.

About a minute later, Will Hastings dribbled through on a breakaway and shot one past Windsor goalie Jacob Mosley.

Hastings came back later in the half, dribbled in circles around the Windsor defense, drove to the net and scored to put SA up 3-0.

&uot;We usually don’t start as strong as we did. That kind of surprised me. We came out with the intensity up front and we finished strong. That just made the difference, keeping that intensity the whole game. And it wasn’t just one player; it was everybody out there. Everybody put out,&uot; said Southampton Academy head coach Jamie Weist.

With a seemingly comfortable lead and beating the Dukes to the ball all over the field, the Raiders had a temporary lapse and let Windsor back in the game with two quick goals before the half.

Chris Mullins popped a shot off a rebound past SA goalie Andrew Edwards. Seconds later, Windsor’s Timmy Songer booted a picture-perfect crossing pass from the right in front of the goal, which was knocked in by Josh Daniels to cut the SA lead to 3-2.

&uot;We picked up those goals at the end of the first half, and I tried to

get it into their heads that they were still in the game, only a point down,&uot; said Matt Burgess, Windsor head coach.

But the momentum did not last. It was the Raiders who opened the second half with two quick goals. Just seconds into the half, SA’s Craig New, playing with a broken arm suffered last week against Fuqua School, was tripped inside the box. Drey Chrysostomou smacked in the penalty shot to put the Raiders up 4-2.

Just seconds later, Tim Chrysostomou passed to Brett Moore, who pounded one past Mosley for a 5-2 lead.

Windsor (3-6) was not finished. The Dukes returned the favor on SA with a penalty kick of their own. Songer was tripped up in the box and scored on the penalty kick.

The Dukes made it interesting when Paul Bryant tipped in a shot after Edwards came out of the goal early to defend another shot and could not get back into position. Windsor had cut the SA lead to 5-4.

From that point, the game was played at a frenetic pace, with both teams sucking wind near the end. Southampton Academy was able to add two late-game goals by Tim Chrysostomou and Marks for the 7-4 final.

Windsor played the game without starting goalie Jacob Tynes and starting right forward Joe Owens. Both were out with issues with the academic tutoring program, according to Burgess. Burgess pulled JV players up to fill the roster.

&uot;That hurt us. We lost our main goalie, and Owens is a big scorer. That could have really helped us out, not to mention the subs,&uot; Burgess said. &uot;We had guys dying out there.&uot;

Weist praised his defense, which did a good job of sweeping Windsor’s offense out of the SA zone at critical points of the game. Andy Cook and Sarah McFarland did a particularly good job of clearing the ball.

&uot;The defense we play is very aggressive. We play an offsides trap. I asked them to lag back about five yards more than we normally do (in the second half), and I think when I did that, it let them (Windsor) push the ball closer to the net and get some opportunities,&uot; Weist said. &uot;At the end of the game, I was trying to get them to pull back into the offsides trap, and we got a critical offsides call at the end of the game.&uot;

Southampton Academy plays at Isle of Wight Academy on Monday. Windsor is scheduled to play Franklin at home on May 2.