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closeRams kickers spank Spanaway Lake Sentinels
Rogers demolishes Spanaway Lake in lopsided affair at Sparks Stadium
Shaun Scott
Rogers boys soccer head coach JR Farias was doing everything in his power to avoid running up the score in a 13-0 victory against Spanaway Lake on April 18 at Sparks Stadium.
Kyle Johnson, Connor Saxe and Paulo Mendieta scored a team-high three goals apiece in the Rams sixth SPSL victory of the season. Joel McMurdo, Trevor Kawamura, Jake Kelnhofer and Josh Carbullido scored a goal apiece as well in the victory.
With the Rams leading 6-0 at halftime, Farias put all of his defenders on offense and all of his forwards on defense and substituted in players who normally don’t get that much playing time as well. But the Rams continued to find the back of the net. The Rams even played the final 15 minutes with 10 players on the field.
“It’s tough when you get in a game like this to get your players to understand that enough is enough,” Farias said. “All they see is an opportunity to score instead of the opportunity to work on passing and ball movement. A lot of our guys who scored tonight were defenders who never get a chance to play offense.”
McMurdo, a three year varsity player and team captain scored the first goal of his Rams career.
“I’m happy for Joel. For him to get his first goal that’s pretty special,” Farias said. “He’s one of our leaders out here.”
Saxe, who usually plays defense on a regular basis, said he never usually has any shots on goal, let alone three goals in one game.
“It was crazy. I’m not used to playing offense,” Saxe said. “Even though we won by a lot of goals, Spanaway is still a tough team that never gives up. They compete pretty well.”
Saxe is hopeful this lopsided victory will help his team perform at a high level for the remainder of the season. The Rams are currently in fourth place. The top four teams in the SPSL South will advance to the district playoffs this May.
“We want to get a little higher than the spot we are in right now,” Saxe said. “We want to at least get to the no. 3 spot so it will get us a better seed.”
With two weeks left in the regular season, Farias said his team has four league games that will decide their playoff fate.
“It’s truly a sprint to the finish,” Farias said. “We got three teams ahead of us and we play two of them down the stretch. We know what we need to do to get better. It’s going to be fun.”