Print
E-Mail
tool name
closeVikings soccer squad rolls over Jaguars
Shaun Scott
Puyallup’s offensive arsenal put on a show against the Emerald Ridge Jaguars soccer team on April 24 at Sparks Stadium in downtown Puyallup.
When the clock struck zero, Puyallup had registered a 4-0 victory and currently is in first place in the SPSL South Division. Emerald Ridge is presently in the fourth place slot. The top four squads from the division advance to the postseason.
Puyallup got the board in the 13th minute after Justin Veltung got past two Emerald Ridge defenders and its goalie after receiving a pass from forward Kyle Gaedke.
“Justin beat two of their defenders and the goalie and put it in,” Vikings coach Matt White said. “It was a great display of Justin’s athletic ability. Every time Justin got the ball there were two guys surrounding him. It was like they were trying to ride him like a saddle. That’s how it was. Every time he touched it, he was surrounded.”
Veltung keyed the Vikings’ second goal in the 15th minute of the game.
“Since their whole defense was converging on Justin, a pass came to him from Pat O’Day and Justin let it go under his legs,” White said. “The ball went directly to Gaedke who put the ball in the net giving us a 2-0 lead.”
Daniel Webster scored in the 78th minute and Gaedke scored the final goal of the night in the final minute of regulation, ensuring a 4-0 victory for the Vikings.
White said his team still is in sole possession of first place in the SPSL South Division.
“Right now we’re two points ahead of Curtis,” White said. “We want to finish out the regular season strong and get the highest seed possible in the playoffs. We have two games left and we want to win both of those.”
Unfortunately for the Vikings, they may head into the playoffs without one of their best players. Kyle Gaedke was injured in final minute of the contest, and as of press time, the prognosis of his injury doesn’t look good.
“It was a physical game. In the final 54 seconds one of Emerald Ridge’s players took out Kyle Gaedke and got a card,” White said. “He might have a broken leg. Kyle went down so hard.”
Emerald Ridge coach David Rosdahl echoed White’s sentiment regarding the physical nature of the contest. Rosdahl said it’s been a league-wide phenomena throughout the spring soccer season.
“These in-district games are always pretty physical, especially when it’s a rivalry,” Rosdahl said. “There were some pretty heated moments out there. It’s been a weird year for that. It’s discouraging seeing that taking place in our league as a whole. That’s the kind of how its been the entire season throughout the league.”
Rosdahl said his team didn’t capitalize on opportunities to score against Puyallup.
“They had chances and scored. We had some opportunities but we didn’t take advantage of them,” Rosdahl. “We had some defensive errors but we were in the game. They scored two goals at the very end so it pretty much a 2-0 game.”