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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Rochester 7, Winamac 0
Wyatt Davis scored four goals and dished out an assist for the Rochester boys soccer team in a win over host Winamac Tuesday.
Carlos Plascencia added two goals, and Spencer Backus also scored for Rochester, who snapped a four-game losing streak and improved to 6-6-1.
Rabuor Tindi and Grant Bailey contributed one assist each.
Aiden Harrington had two saves in goal for the shutout.
Rylan Craig and Hector Gallegos each had a shot on goal for Winamac, who fell to 4-8. The Warriors have been shut out in seven of their eight losses.
Sophomore goalkeeper Logan Schambers had 15 saves.
Rochester will travel to the New Journey Church in Wabash to face Metro Rage at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Metro Rage is a club team consisting of players from Northfield and Southwood high schools.
Winamac will host LaVille at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Maconaquah 6, Rochester 1
Junior Criollo scored off a Wyatt Davis assist in the first half, but the Rochester boys soccer team lost to Three Rivers Conference and sectional rival Maconaquah at the Brent Blacketor Memorial Sports Complex Saturday afternoon.
Garrett McManus and Colton Beebe had two goals each, and Bennett Isenburg and Carlos Gallarado had one goal each for the Braves (9-3-1 overall, 2-1 TRC).
Aiden Harrington had three saves in goal for the Zebras, who dropped to 1-4 in the TRC.
Besides Criollo, Spencer Backus had the only other shot on goal.
A running clock was triggered with 8:40 left after a goal from McManus made it a five-goal margin, per the IHSAA Mercy Rule.
“They’re similar to Manchester,” Rochester coach Eric Backus said. “When they attack, they like sending six. Sometimes six versus four pays off for them. The downfall with that is we couldn’t get it off our defenders’ feet to counter back. And that’s what happened.
“I honestly felt like there were two legit goals we gave up in that game. The rest were because we were standing there watching the ball go right in front of our feet and not going aggressively towards the ball and getting it out of the box. Good teams are going to do that. They’re going to beat you if you can’t clear a ball.”
The game was played in hot, humid conditions. Temperatures were in the low 90s. Coach Backus said his team became fatigued.
“We played decent for about 20 (minutes),” coach Backus said. “And then it looked like we got gassed, and nobody wanted to tell us that they were gassed, and nobody wanted to come out. So we tried rotating people to help out a little bit. I tried to tell them at half, ‘If you’re tired because it’s hot out, let us know. We’ll sub you. You can come get some water and take a quick break and then we’ll put you back in.’ We literally had two kids say, ‘I’m tired. We need a quick break.’”
With remaining games against Winamac, Metro Rage, John Glenn and Culver, the schedule might lighten up somewhat. Still, coach Backus said it is important to see the team improve its mental game before sectionals week starts Oct. 7.
“We’ve got a couple easier opponents coming up, but we still got to take the field and play,” coach Backus said. “And that’s the thing. Something’s going wrong in our heads where we’re just not thinking clear when we’re out here. The communication was better today, but we’re telling our teammates what to do, and they’re not doing what we’re telling them what to do. So you could hear it a couple times: A midfielder would get the ball, and we’re screaming ‘turn’ and he drops it back when we had a wide-open midfield. There are two parts of communication. One’s telling the teammate what to do, and the other one is the teammate listening. We’ve got to get the teammate-listening part a little better.”
