The Pam Pack soccer team continued to flex its muscles early in the season as Washington downed Bear Grass 8-0 on Tuesday to up its record to 5-0-1.
Washington coach Jimmy Kozuch said he was pleased with the team’s hot start but that he does not want his players getting content.
“It means a lot confidence-wise, 5-0 is a good start,” Kozuch said. “But, you have to put away the records sometimes and realize that we still have a ton of things we need to work on. We play a lot of really good teams in the near future. We love the start but we’re not satisfied.”
Just one game after its 2-2 tie with D.H. Conley, the Pam Pack offensive exploded on Wednesday. Alex Donadio led the charge with four goals, while Jorge Rodriguez, Luke Ainsworth and Robert Ruiz each scored once.
“Alex does a good job and he works really hard at practice,” Kozuch said. “He’s really improving his game. He’s starting to finish well and he has great speed. He’s creating a lot of opportunities for himself and he’s becoming a target.”
The Pam Pack, which recently earned a No. 12 ranking in the state amongst 2-A teams, was facing an upstart Bear Grass program playing its first year of soccer and Kozuch said he was happy his team did not look past the Bears.
“(Bear Grass) had some good guys who were working hard and we had to approach it like we were playing any other team,” Kozuch said. “We had to move the ball around and make the right passes and we were able to do that.”
Defensively, Washington has been strong so far this season and looked impressive once again on Wednesday as William Page, Daniel Crozier, Sergio Bolivar and Holt McKeithan continue to improve each game.
“It’s a pretty new defensive line for us but they are playing pretty well,” Kozuch said. “They’re starting to get a little more comfortable with each other. Today they were able to move the ball around a little bit more and communicated better. Each game they have been communicating better with each other and we’re seeing improvement every day.”
Holding a comfortable lead against the Bears, the Pam Pack was able to work on some of the fundamental aspects of the game.
“Playing against Conley last week we got a little sloppy. Our team passing wasn’t very good and we also had some opportunities that we just didn’t finish,” Kozuch said. “Tonight we really worked the ball around. We tried to work on possessing the ball as much as we could and we really did a good job of that. We possessed the ball about 80 to 90 percent of the game.
“We also wanted to work on finishing. Against Conley we weren’t that successful at it but tonight we found a couple of openings and were able to put it away.”