Crawfordsville boys soccer coach Marcus Hale’s goal for his team entering Thursday’s game against the 16th ranked (Class A) North Putnam Cougars was simply for his team to put back-to-back good games together. CHS was coming off a dominating 9-0 win over Benton Central and that momentum propelled them into a very impressive showing on Thursday as they controlled nearly the entire game in a 5-1 win.
Four different Athenians got in the scoring column, which is nothing new for the high-powered offense. Patrick Corado led the way with two goals while Ryo Nishina, Manuel Olvera, and Taiga Koyanagi all recorded a single goal. Corado, Yeison Cifuentes each had an assist with Kevin Puerto leading with two.
“We know that North Putnam will be well-coached team,” Hale said. “We knew that we’d have to play disciplined soccer if we wanted to win. I’m proud of the boys for putting those back to back good games together, but there’s still some work left to be done because our schedule doesn’t get any easier. Our focus continues to be to playing our best as we enter the sectional.” CHS improves to 4-4 on the season and has a plethora of difficult games on the horizon. They’ll travel to Northview on Saturday for a girl/boy double-header before kicking off next week on Monday by hosting McCutcheon before a county matchup against North Montgomery on Wednesday. The final two games of the regular season feature arguably the toughest opponent on their schedule as they’ll welcome the No. 1 team in 2A in the West Lafayette Red Devils on Sep. 26 before ending the season against Danville on Sep. 29.
“Each one of those games will present it’s own set of challenges for us,” Hale said. “I think our main goal for the remainder of the year is just to continue to play as well as we can. I thought our team defense played really well. For us to succeed on that end it takes everyone playing well. We played everyone on our bench so they had to be ready to be prepared for a team that wanted to come in here and win. I thought Alec Saidian did a great job in goal for us. Like I said there’s still some teachable moments that we’ll learn from and get better.”
The game on Saturday against Northview is roughly scheduled for a noon start after the conclusion of the girls game.
