CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Carthage Tigers scored two goals within the first 6 minutes, 17 seconds of their Central Ozark Conference match against Carl Junction on Tuesday at David Haffner Stadium.
Carthage dominated in both overall possession and overall shots, but the goals did not start coming in bulk for the Tigers until late in the second half.
Carthage scored four goals in over five minutes and the Tigers’ eighth goal punctuated an 8-0 victory over the Bulldogs with 4:45 remaining.
“It was 3-0 when we hit our fifth post,” Carthage coach Jacob Osborne said. “We had more post hits than goals at that point.
“Finally, instead of blasting it into the back of the net, they got their head up and just picked corners, which is what we’ve been talking about. It’s hard to get through sometimes, they think that the blasts, the hard-hit goals, the highlight goals, are the ones they want. Just put it in the back of the net, that’s what we’ve been focusing on in practice.
“They had one shot and we had 41. It took us a while to get there.”
Carthage possessed the ball for 73 percent of the match Tuesday night.
Seven different Carthage players scored goals during the 8-0 win: Aldo Sanchez netted two goals and Welle Welle, George Laytham, Henry Hernandez, Eric Garcia, Silas Laytham, and Jorge Lopez scored one each.
Carthage improved to 9-2 overall and 4-1 COC, and the Tigers bring four straight wins into their match on Friday against Capital City in the Kickapoo Shootout.
The Tigers are entering the portion of their schedule where the matches are going to significantly increase their strength of schedule.
“We have a very difficult stretch coming up,” Osborne said. “We’re excited for it. Friday and Saturday, we play at Kickapoo, and we play Capital City on Friday and Lee’s Summit West on Saturday. That’s a new district opponent for us, and they’re always one of the top teams in the state. That will be a tough matchup.
“Next week will be another tough week. Tuesday, we play Joplin. Thursday, we play Kickapoo and then Friday and Saturday, we’re going up to Kansas City to play St. Michael’s and Ladue from St. Louis.
“We’re sitting pretty good, but I’m ready to play some games where we’re going to be pushed more because so far this year we haven’t been pushed much. We’re going to get those games now. We’re going to take some bumps with it, but hopefully it makes us stronger and gets us ready for districts.”
Carl Junction, 4-9 overall and 1-4 COC, plays next Friday and Saturday in the Laker Shootout in Camdenton with matches against Hannibal on Friday to close out September and Camdenton and Hillsboro on Saturday to open in October.
