After being plagued by a slow start in 2012, Washington’s seventh-year soccer coach Jimmy Kozuch challenged his team to get off to a fast start this season and his Pam Pack responded.
On Tuesday, Washington won its home opener 9-0 over Riverside to improve to 2-0 on the year, and after topping Edenton 7-1 earlier in the week, have outscored teams 16-1 in two games.
“Getting off to a fast start is very important,” Kozuch said. “We had a pretty good amount of players that played soccer in the offseason and we’re trying to get everybody to play. But the guys that played all summer, you can see it’s really paying off right now.
“Right now we have a little bit of momentum and we weren’t really able to build any momentum till about midway through the season last year.”
The Pam Pack struck early and often as Jorge Rodriguez notched the first goal of the game and would go on to score two more to net the hat trick.
“He’s a senior and this is his second year on the team,” Kozuch said. “He’s a good strong player. He’s a lefty and has a really good shot. He missed a few, but he had a few good goals as well.”
The Pam Pack would take a 6-0 halftime lead as it got first-half goals by Christian Crompton, Dylan Amorocho and Luis Tellez, while Rodriguez added another first-half score and Riverside scored on its own goal.
After the break, Sergio Bolivar and Richard Bennett scored to boost the lead to 8-0 before Rodriguez’s final goal made it 9-0 and evoked the mercy rule with roughly 15 minutes left in the half.
“We were able to move the ball around tonight once we finally settled down,” Kozuch said. “(Riverside’s) goalie was a very good goalie, we had a lot of shots on him, but we were able to place our shots and finish.”
Defensively, Washington was strong as keeper William Tate and the defense kept the Knights off the scoreboard.
“Our goalie William Tate, a sophomore, is a big presence in the goal. He’s a very good goalie and he communicates well with the defenders,” Kozuch said. “The defense played alright tonight. They didn’t have a lot of pressure against them but they moved the ball well and possessed it pretty good.”
While Kozuch was pleased with the team’s play he said Wednesday’s game was far from flawless.
“I’d like to see them pass the ball around and move it a little bit better,” Kozuch said. “We played a little bit rushed at times for no reason. I think a lot of it just comes with experience and just being out on the field. I’d like to see them slow the pace down at times and distribute the ball quicker.
“Overall, I’m happy but we have a ton of things to work on. We missed a lot of easy opportunities to start the game. We have to finish. We play a big game on Friday night at J.H. Rose and if we miss easy opportunities against them we’ll never have a chance to beat them.”