By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– After an 0-2 start to the year, the West Salem Boys Soccer team have wheeled off four-straight wins coming out of their 4-0 victory over North Salem on Monday.
Those first two games, against Lake Oswego and Gresham, taught the Titans perseverance and it’s paid off over the last two weeks or so.
“The first two games were solid, they taught us a lot of resilience. Good team’s know how to finish games,” starts West Salem Head Coach Salvador Gutierrez. “So we understand that even though we were leading in the first half of the first two games, the game didn’t go in our favor. We adapted and pivoted . We’ve adjusted some thing’s to finish games strong and here we are.”
West Salem pushed tempo in their Central Valley Conference game with the Vikings at North Salem High School on Monday. And they finished opportunities. They led 2-0 by the 39th minute, taking the lead off an Alex Lopez and a Roman Mysyak goal. The Titans got the pressure off their back third and let their front line and midfielders do much of the heavy lifting in this one.
“It’s the transition to offense. Regardless of how stable that backline is, if we’re not transitioning fast enough to the opponent’s final third, the opponent gets comfortable,” said North Salem Head Coach Moises Mendoza Medina. “So we have to keep the opponent on their toe’s in their final third as well to keep them true and Ithink that’s what we were missing today.”
“All the credit to West, they came out strong, they came out and pressured, they’re an offensive powerhouse.”
West Salem just sustained that energy. That energy from their midfielders, from their offensive third, all game long it was there. During the 66th and 67th minutes, the Titans added to their lead. Miles Johnson tacked on two goals over those two minutes to push the then 2-0 lead to 4-0 as they, West Salem, improved to 4-2 on the year.
It spoke towards what Gutierrez has been working with his team this year. Control what you control like tempo, and good things will come as they have been to this point.
“What’s important and what the guys understand, it’s going to take time. Control the game, control the tempo, the goals will come. It’s not going to be 1,2,3-0 in the first five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes right? It’s going to take time to get there. We build and we connect and that’s just us. We flow and we pull off a result like we did tonight,” said Gutierrez.
West Salem travels to play at McKay on Thursday while North Salem will host South Salem on Thursday. Both games are slated to start at 7pm.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
