Published: August 14, 2007 08:56 pm            

Kokomo blanks Eastern in boys soccer

GREENTOWN — Kokomo’s boys soccer team showed why the Wildkats are so optimistic about the new season Tuesday afternoon.

The Wildkats aren’t yet at cruising speed, but showed a great first step by beating key rival Eastern 3-0 in the opening game of the season for both teams.

The Kats asserted themselves early as good passing set up goals by Justin Brown and Drew Marshall in the opening 15 minutes.

“From the beginning of the game when we started off, I thought we had real good ball control, we spread the ball nicely, we were running nice angles, running off the defenders,” Kokomo coach Wil Hendrickson said. “The passing was very good. I would have preferred a faster pace, but the structure was there, just not the pace I’d really like.”

Hendrickson would have liked to see better finishing, but for the first game of the season, it was a performance he could live with even if several shots went high or wide. Three shots hit the mark for the Kats.

Brown’s goal got the ball rolling. Ross Benedict penetrated to the left baseline and cut back a short cross just behind Brown. The Kat forward reached back and headed the cross home for a 1-0 lead eight minutes into the game.

Seven minutes later the Kats struck again. Josh Brown’s long diagonal pass cut through the Eastern defense and found Drew Marshall in stride, for Marshall to one-time it home. In the second half, Andrew Renshaw finished off the scoring with a strike in the 66th minute. He collected a pass from Oscar Chavez in midfield, took a few yards of open territory and ripped a sizzler from 25 yards out.

Defensively, Kokomo handled everything the Comets threw at them. Eastern’s best chances were on breakaways but most of those rushes were snuffed out by defenders or goalie Eric Fluck.

“We were able to mop those up,” Hendrickson said of the Comet attacks. “Someone would chase them away from the central zone or Eric … he came out and compressed that gap very well, very nicely. If it got past the defenders, it was in to Eric before their offense could catch up to it.”

Fluck finished with six saves, none better than in the 59th minute. With the Kats up 2-0 he kept the Comets off the scoreboard charging way off his line to body block a breakaway, then scampered backwards to punch save a shot that was pumped back on frame.

The Comets had a better second half including a couple clear looks at goal but went home disappointed. Eastern coach Mike Kantz said the Comets didn’t show enough desire.

“The times we would run at them, we could press them and make them make some bad passes,” he said. “We didn’t do any of that in the first half. Case in point was every punt and every goal kick was first touched by Kokomo — every time. You can’t tell me that we have the desire to win when we can’t touch a punt first. That’s a 50-50 ball.

“I just feel despondent, like a total grief thinking that we had this chance on a beautiful day that’s finally cool and we can’t play hard; lay an egg.”

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.