Greencastle rolls over Mustangs

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Greencastle's Spencer Moore scores in the first half of Tuesday's contest with Edgewood. GHS won the contest 7-1 and will face Speedway Thursday at 6 p.m.

GREENCASTLE -- A three goal onslaught within a six minute span in the first half helped propel the GHS boys' soccer team to a 7-1 victory over visiting Edgewood Tuesday.

Greencastle got on the board at the 25:56 mark when Brandon Query sent a shot past Edgewood's keeper. Two minutes later, senior Spencer Moore found the back of the net, giving the Tiger Cubs a 2-0 advantage.

Sonney Basham extended the GHS lead to 3-0 when he scored with 19:42 on the clock.

The Mustangs only goal came on a penalty kick from Jordan Groff at the 7:10 mark. Greencastle might have held a 3-1 advantage, but they were far from done attacking.

Senior Luke Smith scored his first of three goals with 4:26 and added his second at the 3:10 mark, giving GHS a 5-1 advantage at the half.

Greencastle head coach Dave Lilly noted that you never want to see penalty kicks, but there's always the chance of it happening. A good team just has to roll with the punches.

"I just tell the guys they need to be one better than that play. In the close games that can impact it, but tonight it really didn't matter. We don't want it to happen in any event," Lilly said.

The Tiger Cubs emptied the bench in the second half and kept the pressure on. Lilly commented that he wanted to slow the game down to give his team the opportunity to work on some things.

Smith added his third and final goal with 23:27 remaining and David Cath recorded the Tiger Cubs' final goal of the night with 14:36 on the clock.

"It was a great first half," Lilly said. "We were hoping for another shutout, we've had a pretty good string of them. That seven goals seems to be a good working number for us in a lot of games for us."

Up next for the Tiger Cubs will be the Speedway Sparkplugs. Speedway has been an offensive juggernaut this season, racking up more than 80 goals thus far, but Greencastle looks to change that.

"They'll be no holding back on Thursday on either side," Lilly assured.

Precision passing was what blew the lid off the game Tuesday, as the Tiger Cubs had multiple chances to attack after receiving passes in stride.

Lilly acknowledged his team seems to be hitting its stride and can pinpoint just when the change happened.

"(With) our combination play, I think it just a matter of playing with more confidence," he said. "We were tentative early, we just didn't finish as well. We had a lot of good chances to score in the first four games. It just kind of came together for Terre Haute South and it's been there and we've kind of been building on it. You want to see a few new wrinkles every game and learn from those mistakes.

"Speedway hasn't been beat, so it'd be nice to put a dirty mark on their page too," he concluded with a laugh.

At Greencastle

Edgewood 1 0 -- 1

Greencastle 5 2 -- 7

First Half

GHS -- Query 25:56

GHS -- Moore 23:58

GHS -- Basham 19:42

E -- Groff 7:10

GHS -- Smith 4:26

GHS -- Smith 3:10

Second Half

GHS -- Smith 23:27

GHS -- Cath 14:36

Next game -- Greencastle will host Speedway at 6 p.m.