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.
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.
In winning, the Warriors tallied more goals than they had in all of their previous contests combined.
“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.”
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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.
Whiteland didn’t need that many, but it probably could have scored as much had it kept the pressure up.
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.
Soon after that, Pike tallied his second goal, beating Woodmen goalie Alexis Anaya unassisted.
Tristan Thomas and Riccardo Sicchiero also scored for the Warriors.
Making matters worse in the first half for the Woodmen was an own goal, which was headed the wrong way past Anaya.
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.
Clites was assisted by Joshua Harris.
Also encouraging for Greenwood was Anaya, who made several tough saves that prevented the Warriors from reaching double digits.
“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.”
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.
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.
