KEYSTONE HEIGHTS – Keystone Heights High got goals from Andrew Oxley and Alex Cruz, but Crescent City nailed a gamewinner late in the second half to hold on to a 3-2 district 2-5A contest Tuesday night at Keystone Heights.

With the loss, Keystone Heights falls to 6-5-2 overall and 1-4-1 in district play while Crescent City, the defending district champions, improves to 7-4-0, 6-1-0 in district play. Santa Fe leads the district at 8-0-1, 6-0-0.

In girls soccer, Keystone Heights is at 6-5-1 overall, 2-0 in district play with a 4-4 tie at Crescent City on Tues., Dec. 13. Santa Fe leads the district 5-2A lineuup at 9-0-0, 2-0-0 with Santa Fe, 8-5-0, 3-0-0 and Keystone Heights in second and third.

After finishing the first half tied at 0-0, Keystone Heights scored first when Cruz sent a crossing pass in front of the Crescent City goal that found Oxley sliding in from his forward position to smash the first goal of the night near the four minute mark.

Cruz leads the scoring for the Indians with eight goals with Jacob Hopkins adding four, Landon Ricketts adding two and six players with one goal apiece. Ricketts leads assists with four.

“We don’t have one big scoring guy like we have had in the past,” said Keystone Heights Trevor Waters. “We have to kind of get the ball downfield and find open guys.”

Crescent City had a free kick just two minutes later, but the kick went wide left of Indians’ goalie Caleb Cushman. Cushman has played the goalie in all the game with six shutouts and a 10.7 saves per game average.

“He has some Division I schools already looking at him for college,” said Waters. “He’s just a smart player and very quick to the ball approaching his goal.”

Crescent City got a header goal in front of Cushman on a long service pass from left to right to tie the game at 1-1 before the water break of the second half.

Cruz answered two more near-shots on goal by the Indians when a free kick ping-ponged in front of the Crescent City goal, found Oxley, found the goalie and, finally, found Cruz who punched in the loose ball for a 2-1 lead near the 19 minute mark.

Crescent City started pushing more players into Cushman’s zone in front of the Keystone Heights goal, but the sophomore keeper kept his post clear for most of the second half. Crescent City tied the game off a corner kick out of the second half water break and caught Cushman leaning the wrong way.

Tied 2-2 with time clicking down, Keystone Heights had some trouble getting Crescent City out of their end of the field and the Raiders hit the go-ahead goal with a long ball breakaway with nine minutes left in the game.

Keystone Heights remaining schedule before Christmas includes Fernandina Beach at home on December 14, at Palatka December 15, at Fort White December 18 and home against Fort White December 19.

Keystone Heights’ wins are over Clay (1-0), Trinity Christian (7-0), St. Francis (1-0), West Nassau (5-0), Orange Park (2-1), Interlachen (2-0) with ties to P.K. Yonge (0-0) and Suwannee (1-1). Losses have been to Eastside (3-1), Santa Fe (5-0), Crescent City (5-0), Newberry (1-0) and Crescent City (3-2).