DONNELLSON - The Central Lee Hawks boys' soccer team found all the offense they needed in a 4-0 SEI Superconference win over Highland.
The Hawks had more than 25 shots on goal and freshman midfield Colton Taft scored twice as Central Lee found their first win of the year.
Head Coach Justin Schau said the win was huge for the Hawks, who he said are very young and have been playing much better than the scoreboard indicates.
"Tuesday against Mediapolis we had the early lead, and that game was more even than the score reflected," he said.
"Our boys were a little dejected right after the game, but the officials even came up and told them to hold their heads up and told them that was the most fun game they've officiated in years.
"It was just that intense and back and forth."
The Hawks lost that game 6-1, giving up three goals in each half. But Schau said numbers are hurting the Hawks.
"We just don't have a bench. Tuesday we had two kids on the bench and tonight we had three. I didn't even sub until the 20-minute mark of the second half," he said.
Sophomore Ayden Kent and junior Dante Merschman played the whole 80 minutes as did several other Hawks.
Merschman got the Hawks on the board early with a bullet from about 12 feet out off an assist from Taft at the 22:30 mark. Most of the match was played on the Hawks’ half of the pitch leading to all the shots. Merschman’s goal came on the seventh scoring attempt.
The Hawks would get six more shots in before the end of the first half but Huskie goalie Jackson Keller would ward off two shots, but the other four all went high over the cross bar.
Central Lee would get going again quickly in the second half when Taft would blast a shot through the middle from about 15 feet on a lateral assist from Kent. Schau had been asking for lateral passes on breakaways for a majority of the first half.
Kent, a speedster forward, led the pack most of the night, moving the ball into scoring position and chasing down lead passes, but struggled finding the net on six shots.
“We’ve been working and working with him in practice and once he settles in, right now he just relies on his speed and that can get in trouble. When he can focus on the soccer instead of just blowing by people, that will help the whole team,” Schau said.
“But when we have a through-ball and he needs to blast by people, that’s when that speed is critical.”
The Hawks would get two more goals in the second half, another by Taft at 19:45 and the final goal on a soft punch in the middle that Keller mishandled and allowed to get under his legs to give Beau Boyd a goal at 9:53.
“We needed to get in the win column because we’ve got two pretty decent games coming up next week with Hillcrest and Mt. Pleasant. They're two winnable games, so getting this win will be huge coming into the weekend. But we gotta know that we can play better soccer,” Schau said.
“I told the boys tonight, we can’t be satisfied with this result. It is a victory and gets us in the win column, but we’ve played some decent teams this year. We’re more intense against the tougher teams and, if we bring that today, it’s a 9-0 game,” he said.
“I don’t want to harp on them because they're doing good things out there, it just seems the obvious to me - they make more complicated. They are young and it’s a developmental year for sure for us.”
Hunter Gregory was playing keeper for the Hawks on a bum leg, but the offense kept most of the action away from Gregory as he had just one save in the shutout.
Taft, Kent, Merschman, and Boyd all had assists for Central Lee 1-4 (1-1), who travels to Hillcrest for another Superconference match.
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