The first 39:59 of the match belonged to the Green Dragons, with two goals from the foot of Viktor Permyashkin and one from Keegan Crosby before Lake Lehman finished a late flurry with a goal as the buzzer sounded. Another goal from the Black Knights set up a tense final 20 minutes, but Lewisburg’s defense held as the Green Dragons’ advanced to the quarterfinals.

“A win is a win, we’ll take them any way we can get,” Lewisburg head coach Ben Kettlewell said. “As long as we keep moving on and we get to practice tomorrow, that’s always a good thing.”

Permyashkin opened the scoring just seven minutes into the match off an assist from Crosby before blowing a kiss to a rowdy group of Black Knight faithful.

The Green Dragons peppered Lake Lehman goalie Andrew Chapple throughout the next 15 minutes, but Permyashkin struck again from the top of the box to push the lead to 2-0 and repeated the celebration.

CJ DOEBLER/Special to the Sun-Gazette Lewisburg's Gabe Pawling takes a drop kick in the first half of Tuesday's PIAA Class AA first round game against Lake Lehman.

“Viktor’s generally a quiet-natured kind of kid, but when he gets fired up, he gets fired up,” Kettlewell said. “That’s when people start to listen.”

Crosby added the Green Dragons’ third goal of the night on a pass from Isaac Ayres while the Lewisburg front line crashed the net.

The Black Knights finally managed an offensive possession, recording their first corner of the match with less than a minute left in the first half. The corner try was unsuccessful, but a reset to the left side of the box left Aiden Gallagher a chance at the net as time expired, bringing a physical first half to an end.

“I thought it was going to be exactly like that,” Kettlewell said. “They hit us, they put pressure on us, but if we calm down, we can find good moments, and we did in the first half.”

Lake Lehman kept up the offensive streak to start the second half, and Andrew Mathes put a ball in the back of the net to bring Lewisburg’s lead down to one with 34 minutes remaining.

CJ DOEBLER/Special to the Sun-Gazette Lewisburg's Viktor Permyashkin blows a kiss to the crowd after scoring the first goal of Tuesday's PIAA Class AA playoff matchup with Lake Lehman.

“We definitely were panicking after that second goal, it kind of deflated us a bit,” Kettlewell said. “We just had to survive there for a little bit.”

Survive, they did. The Green Dragons’ back line weathered the Black Knights’ attacks for the final 10 minutes, and Gabe Pawling swatted the final chance out of the box with eight seconds remaining to cement the 3-2 victory.

“It’s really a credit to our guys,” Kettlewell said. “We’ve talked about the next play; we just have to keep going and stay together. I felt like our leaders were able to get all our other guys to do that.”

With the win, Lewisburg moves on to the quarterfinals where the Green Dragons will face Devon Prep at a time and place to be determined. Until then, it’s back to work.

“I’ll let these guys recover, and that’s really our thought process at the moment,” Kettlewell said. “We need to recover and make sure that we’re ready to move forward. That’s all we’re promised; practice tomorrow and the rest of this week.”

CJ DOEBLER/Special to the Sun-Gazette Lewisburg's Roan Beachy fights for positioning with Lake Lehman's Andrew Mathes during Tuesday's PIAA Class AA first round matchup between the Green Dragons and Lake Lehman.

Lewisburg 3, Lake Lehman 2

(PIAA CLASS AA PLAYOFFS)

L–Viktor Permyashkin (Keegan Crosby), 32:26. L–Permyashkin (Jack Kohl), 17:09. L–Crosby (Isaac Ayres), 7:19. LL–Aiden Gallagher, 0:00. LL–Andrew Mathes, 34:31.

Shots: L 3, LL 7. Corners: L 4, LL 1. Saves: L 2 (Gabe Pawling), LL 5 (Andrew Chapple).