Playing in a winner-take-all showdown with Beddingfield, the Washington soccer team walked away with its hands full as the Pam Pack topped the Bruins 3-0 to win the Eastern Plains Conference championship in the final game of the regular season.
In front of a charged home crowd that came out to support the 10 Pam Pack seniors on Senior Night, Washington was able to shut out a potent Bruins offense and lock up the conference’s No. 1 seed for the upcoming playoffs.
“I think right now we’re all on Cloud 9,” said Washington coach Jimmy Kozuch, who captured his first conference championship of his eight-year tenure with the team. “We’re all really excited. We worked really hard this year. We have a great bunch of guys out here and a lot of them are very emotional.
“With it being Senior Night they just wanted to go out and get that conference championship and they left it all on the field tonight.”
The two teams tied 2-2 in their first meeting of the year at Beddingfield, but on Thursday Washington gave a superb defensive effort and took advantage of its opportunities to get the win.
“They’re are a good team and the last time we played them they managed to find a few weaknesses,” Kozuch said. “This time the big difference was that we capitalized a lot more. The last time we had 25 shots and only scored twice. Tonight, our shooting percentage was much better.
“Defensively, Jeff Bennett was marking up on their top scorer who’s got 32 goals on the season and Jeff did a remarkable job on him and William Tate, our keeper, did a great job.”
After a scoreless first half, Washington caught a break when the Bruins scored on their own goal 10 minutes into the second to put the Pack ahead 1-0.After that, Washington poured it on as senior captain Alex Donadio rifled in a shot from 15 yards out before Sergio Higuera scored the third and final goal.
“The first half was a good half, it was back and forth,” Kozuch said. “In the second half we started to take possession more. We were knocking on the door and when we did catch a break we were able to find a few more holes after that.
“I think when we went up on them it forced them to change their formation a little bit and it opened things up for us.”
The win was a great way to cap off the regular season for the 10 seniors on the team.
“These seniors are just overall great guys,” Kozuch said. “They have a ton of fun and really understand the boundaries of having fun and working hard, which is really important.
“You don’t want to work all the time and bust your butt and not have fun, but at the same time they know where to draw the line and they know when it’s time to get serious. Because of that it just made practice that much more enjoyable. These guys really get along with each other and that’s a big part of being a good team.”

By BRIAN HAINES
Washington Daily News

Pack JV goes undefeated
The Washington JV soccer team beat Beddingfield 6-1, capping a historic season in which the Pam Pack won the Eastern Plains Conference title and finished undefeated for the first time in school history.
“I’m very happy. These guys came in and played great,” Washington coach Ed Rodriguez said. “They showed good team work, they listened and they did everything that I asked and did it as a team.”
While the Pack had no problem putting up points, it was its ability to keep opposing teams from scoring that was its strength.
“Defense was the strength of the team,” Rodriguez said. “We allowed seven goals in 15 games and most of the ones we gave up were without two defenders that moved up to varsity.
“They’re a good group of kids and they play well as a team. A lot of them are going to move up and do very well on varsity.”
Rodriguez cited victories over D.H. Conley and a perfect 3-0 record against J.H. Rose as highlights of the season.