BY MURRAY GLEFFE
CORRESPONDENT
DE PERE- The West De Pere boys soccer team defeated the Shawano Hawks by a final of 11-1 Friday afternoon to go 7-0 and complete an unblemished mark in the Bay Conference. (Oct. 5)
Alex Woulf and Dillon Davidson each had a hat trick on the night and Parker Nimmer added two goals.
Evan Rinke made three saves in goal for the Phantoms while Collin Buerman made 15 for the Hawks.
The Phantoms started with their onslaught from the opening kick.
In the seventh minute, Nimmer broke free of the Hawks defense and booted a left-footed kick into the back net to get West De Pere on the board first.
Just a couple of minutes later, Davidson came shooting up the left half of the field and laced a shot in on Buerman.
Buerman appeared to make the save, but the ball squirted through and the Phantoms took a 2-0 lead only eight minutes into the contest.
Davidson tacked on another one just two minutes later to make it 3-0.
“Dillon is just a relaxed type of player,” said Tod Maki, West De Pere soccer coach. “He doesn’t play ultra-aggressive, rather he settles to be in the right position to get a shot off. That is very important in the soccer we teach.”
With just over 16 minutes of soccer being played, Woulf added a second goal in which he faked out three Hawks defenders on the way to the goal. He capitalized with a 15-foot shot that found the top part of the net to make it 4-0.
“Alex is a tremendous soccer player,” Maki said. “He likes to have the ball in his possession. He utilizes his extreme quickness to beat opponent’s defenders on the perimeter. He has a great chance to play at the next level because of his determination, intensity, and skill.”
With the game being played exclusively on the Phantoms offensive side of the field, the Hawks took advantage of a slip on defense to notch their first goal of the night.
Mitchell Jung took a long kick from teammate Cesar Ramirez.
As the rain was falling, a couple of Phantoms defenders slipped, and Jung fired a shot past Rinke to cut the lead to 4-1.
It was short lived, however, as West De Pere tacked on four additional goals in the first half to take an 8-1 lead into the locker room.
The Phantoms Spencer Borley got involved with the goal scoring by blasting a rocket in from just six yards out to open up the second half.
After only three shots in the first 55 minutes, the Hawks finally got a couple of nice looks.
The first was from Keenan Raddant who went barreling down the field and sent a cross to Seth Westphal.
Alex Vaughn, who replaced Rinke at halftime, made an incredible save to preserve the big lead.
The second came from William Bergner who attempted a wind mill kick that missed just wide left of the Phantoms goal.
After Davidson added his third goal of the evening, West De Pere was within one goal of ending the contest due to the 10 goal mercy rule.
With 67:39 showing on the clock, Rinke (who played midfield in half number two) tallied the final goal of the evening.
“It felt good to give some kids the opportunity to play different positions on the night,” said Maki. “Once we got out to the big lead just minutes in, it freed us up to experiment a bit.”
The Phantoms improve to 10-3-2 on the year, and will enter the conference tournament as the overall number one seed.
“It just feels golden,” said Maki. “To win a regular season crown in 2018 is amazing. We were sitting here last year just trying to compete with some of these teams and now we hope to win a championship and make a run in the WIAA playoffs.”
The champion will have to win games on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday to come out on top of the Bay Conference tournament.
Box Score:
West De Pere 8, 3 11
Shawano 1, 0 1
