<p>Soccer is an 80-minute game, but it certainly didn’t take that long for the Whiteland boys to assert themselves against rival Greenwood on Thursday.</p>
<p>It took only five minutes for Whiteland to basically end the game, and the Warriors used the remaining time to bury the Woodmen, 6-1.</p>
<p>In winning, the Warriors tallied more goals than they had in all of their previous contests combined.</p>
<p>“We are still cleaning up some stuff, but we looked a lot better than we have the first three games,” Whiteland coach Justin VanHorn said. “It was a good day.”</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>Defensively, it hasn’t been the best of starts for the Woodmen. They came in having given up 37 goals, including 14 in a Tuesday loss at Greenfield-Central.</p>
<p>Whiteland didn’t need that many, but it probably could have scored as much had it kept the pressure up.</p>
<p>Senior Trevor Pike led the scoring for Whiteland with two goals and an assist. Pike’s first goal came in the fifth minute. Seven minutes later, he assisted on a nice header goal from Jakob Beaulieu.</p>
<p>Soon after that, Pike tallied his second goal, beating Woodmen goalie Alexis Anaya unassisted.</p>
<p>Tristan Thomas and Riccardo Sicchiero also scored for the Warriors.</p>
<p>Making matters worse in the first half for the Woodmen was an own goal, which was headed the wrong way past Anaya.</p>
<p>Greenwood’s lone goal came with five minutes left in the game. Senior Jaden Clites beat the Whiteland defense and got the ball past goalie Nolan Ferguson.</p>
<p>Clites was assisted by Joshua Harris.</p>
<p>Also encouraging for Greenwood was Anaya, who made several tough saves that prevented the Warriors from reaching double digits.</p>
<p>“We had quite a few assists on our goals which hasn’t been happening for us in the past,” said VanHorn. “It was a good performance, and a lot of the younger guys got some minutes at the varsity level and we got out of here with a conference win.”</p>
<p>Whiteland improves to 2-1-1 and 1-1 in the Mid-State Conference and is now unbeaten since losing its opener to Plainfield. Up next for the Warriors is a home match against Speedway on Saturday morning.</p>
<p>Greenwood (0-4) will again try to crack in the win column when it plays the first of four consecutive road games next Wednesday at Herron.</p>
