Staff photo / Brian Yauger Grand Valley sophomore Connor Gallagher attempts a shot on goal as Lordstown’s Dylan Davis dives to make a save.

LORDSTOWN — A quick pair of goals in the first half from junior Christian Johnson gave Grand Valley the start it needed to set the tone on Thursday, completing the season sweep of Lordstown in a 3-0 win.

Johnson scored both goals, one off a penalty kick, just before the halfway point of the first half.

The Mustangs are a young team, especially on the back end, where the majority of the unit is composed of underclassmen. Replacing seven seniors from last year’s group is never an easy feat.

With a young team comes growing pains, and they saw a little of that against the Red Devils.

“They’re trying to figure it out,” Mustangs coach Rick Huffman said. “We expect that with the youth, but they’re embracing it, they’re learning, they’re putting in the effort. Today got us back at .500 (4-4-0). We’re still in the running for the NAC with Bristol and Badger, so we’ll take that and kind of go from there.”

Junior Evan Skrtic scored in the second half for Grand Valley.

Lordstown has players that can make you pay defensively if you aren’t careful, making it a challenge for a young unit, but the Mustangs held strong and pitched their third shutout of the season.

“The defense held up, and got another shutout,” Huffman said. “Last year, that all-senior defense had seven (shutouts), so they’re working hard.”

After an emotional 4-1 loss to Badger earlier in the week, Grand Valley hoped to get back in the win column and gain some ground in the conference race. With a rematch set for Oct. 6, the Mustangs have a lot of growth to do and are excited for the challenge.

If they want to win the league, they have to go through Badger and Bristol to do it.

“That was a great game,” Huffman said of his team’s game against the Braves. “We obviously respect Badger as a perennial powerhouse in our area, so we held our own. … We were just battling back-and-forth, it was an intense game. Their assistant coach described it very much like a championship field kind of game. Very intense, going back-and-forth.

“(Going against them and Bristol) will be a challenge, and we’ll see how our young guys step up. If you want to be in the conference championship conversations, you gotta beat the teams that are good.”

Lordstown (2-6-2) is battling with illness spreading throughout the roster, all while playing a lot of games in not a lot of days. Red Devils coach Wayne Hickman is hoping the weekend can give the team a reset going forward.

“We’ve got a weekend to recover here,” he said. “Let’s get the kids healthy, because there’s so many of them that are sick literally out all week, but we got Badger on Monday and see what we can do. Hopefully, the kids can go.”

They look to get back into the win column on Monday at Badger. Grand Valley also plays on Monday, traveling to Vienna to take on Mathews.