In a perfect world, East forward Stayner Langeland would be able to walk on and off a soccer field without drawing any attention to himself.

The Leopard senior had the easy life last spring playing alongside Jake Cook. Cook, a prolific scoring threat in his days at East, drew multiple defenders like a magnet whenever he even touched the ball. It left time and room for someone like Langeland to operate.

Langeland enjoys no such obscurity this season. For the Leopards, he has essentially become the new Jake Cook — a number one target of opposing defenses.

"There's been a lot more attention coming my way," Langeland said. "It's been really frustrating at times, for sure."

Langeland may not like the extra pressure, but he has handled it just fine. He has emerged as East's leading scorer for a second year in a row, with five goals in the team's first five games.

As a junior, Langeland chipped in 14 goals — many of which came at the expense of defensive plans largely focused on stopping Cook. The difference this year is that he's still scoring with the double teams now shifting to him.

"They definitely do not lose track of where he is on the field," said East coach Rudy Schenk. "If they do, then they pay the price."

Shutting down the senior does not guarantee success. The Leopards have plenty of scoring options. Besides Langeland, four other players have scored at least two or more goals — led by Chris Toronto, another senior, who has tallied three.

Defense has played an even bigger part in East's stay near the top of Region 6. The Leopards strung together three straight shutouts to open Region 6 play before finally yielding a goal in last Friday's 1-0 loss at Olympus.

East has allowed five goals in six games overall, despite relying on a back line rebuilt from scratch after all of the 2007 starters graduated.

Schenk credited a pair of senior goalkeepers, Coulson Wiscomb and Logan Jamison for providing a degree of stability and flexibility on that end.

"If one goes down, the other is there," Schenk said. "And (having both) helps to settle the defense."

Combined with what Langeland and his teammates up front do on the offensive end, it provides a good formula for making East a region title contender yet again. Langeland feels like the Leopards have the upper hand in Region 6, regardless of what happened with the Titans.

With a better all-around effort against Olympus, he thinks East would be on top even now.

"Their goal wasn't anything special," Langeland said. "It was just a mistake on our part. We didn't deserve to win, but we didn't deserve to lose either."

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