Boys soccer: Blue Demons strike early against Big Reds

CENTERVILLE — In basketball, it's called a full-court press.

The Albia boys soccer team may have rolled out a full-pitch press on Monday against Centerville. Much like in basketball, the Blue Demons made it tough for the Big Reds to connect on any pass even from their own end line forcing the type of turnovers that resulted in quick strikes at the net.

As a result, Albia jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. Blake Wirtjes deflected a goal kick into the net in just the second minute of the match, giving the Blue Demons the first of six goals in the opening half in a 7-0 South Central Conference win more than doubling the team's total number of goals in the first five matches of the season.

"That was a pretty interesting start to the match. I don't think I've seen anything like that happen before," Albia head boys soccer coach Matt Johnson said. "We've talked a lot about that, when a team is playing short, we've got to be able to got 100-percent right at them. We try to do a high press and keep the ball down in the area where we can force mistakes and capitalize on those mistakes."

Albia was able to build a commanding lead by taking advantage of Centerville miscues. Ben Wilson scored the first two goals of his first career hat trick off Big Red turnovers in the opening 13 minutes, lifting the Blue Demons to a 3-0 lead.

"We knew this might be a tough season. We were worried about getting the number of players out, but we ended up with 20 guys out for soccer. It's just a matter of having guys that are new to soccer learning how to play together," Centerville head boys soccer coach Faustino Terrones III said. "We've got good vibes going out there even if the scoreline doesn't always show it. We're working on a system. They really wanted to change the system, but I had to tell them we need to make the passes necessary to move the ball up the field productively.

"Half my team has never played varsity soccer at all, so with half a team that's never played in that environment, we need them to get their bodies under control and calm down."

Judah Smith added a pair of goals in the opening half, lifting Albia to a 5-0 lead. Wilson clinched his first hat trick by scoring a goal off a long run with 6:53 left in the opening half before finishing off the night scoring his career-high fourth goal in the 76th minute clinching the seven-goal victory.

"I didn't score my first goal until last season and I ended up scoring five goals for the entire season. I'm already up to five goals this season," Wilson said. "They were just handing us the ball out there, so we just had to take advantage. It's just a matter of putting ourselves in the right place at the right time."

Albia (2-4, 2-2 SCC) begins the second half of conference play at Clarke on Tuesday before stepping out of conference for a trip to Central Lee on Thursday. Centerville (0-4, 0-1 SCC) hosts Oskaloosa on Friday.