By Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
At the conclusion of Seymour’s conference-opening match against Jeffersonville, head coach Matt Dennis told his team that goals are hard to come by and wins are hard to come by.
On Tuesday night at home, Seymour put up five goals to defeat Jeffersonville 5-1 and start out the Hoosier Hills Conference season with a win.
“Going forward, being 1-0 in the conference is something that we wanted to have tonight and we got it,” Dennis said.
Right from the start, the Owls were putting pressure on the Red Devils’ backline.
Seymour had three corner kicks within the first 10 minutes, and on the fourth one, the Owls cashed in.
Gabe Baker sent it in from the left side, and Will Cottrill put it in the back of the net to give Seymour a 1-0 lead with 29:57 in the first half.
That opened the floodgates for the Owls.
Donovyn Thomas got the ball streaking down the left flank and beat his defender to put himself one-on-one with the Jeff keeper and Thomas won the battle.
It was Thomas’ third goal of the season, and he put Seymour up 2-0 with 23:19 in the first half.
Less than a minute later, Tsubasa Kato set Oliver Kardos up at the top of the box, and he put it over the goalie’s head to give Seymour a 3-0 lead with 22:32 left.
“Tsubasa’s assist was fantastic,” Dennis said.
The fourth and final goal on the first half came with 9:09 remaining when Kevin Cervantes connected a beautiful through pass to Cottrill, who buried the shot in the bottom left corner.
Seymour goalie Will Smith didn’t see many issues in the first half as Seymour took the 4-0 advantage into the break.
“I think the most proud I am is that yesterday’s (Monday’s) training session was seen in today’s (Tuesday’s) match,” Dennis said. “The boys took the training pitch and really applied it in a match, which is every coach’s dream. I was really proud of that.”
Dennis told the team at halftime that he was concerned that they would get too comfortable with the lead, so the Owls responded.
As a rainbow appeared over Seymour’s side of the field to start the second half, Thomas found gold on the other side.
Less than two minutes into the second half, Baker found Thomas flying down the left flank once again, and he got around his defender and shot it off the right goalpost and in to score his second goal of the game and put Seymour up 5-0 in the match.
Thomas’ goal — his fourth of the season — initiated a running clock the rest of the game.
“He’s fast,” Dennis said of Thomas. “Every game we’re getting him more and more involved in the possession and allowing him to use tools other than his speed, but his two goals today were nothing but brute force getting behind the defense and scoring.”
There was a five-minute stretch in the second half where Jeff was able to create some pressure that left Dennis unhappy.
The Red Devils got one back with 29:48 left in the game when they were awarded a penalty kick via a handball in the box, and Gabe Williams snuck it just under Smith’s diving body for a goal.
A couple minutes later, Baker almost responded for the Owls. He drilled the crossbar off a free kick about 10 yards outside the box.
Casey Regruth also almost had a couple shot attempts go in late in the second half. One sailed just over the crossbar from the top of the box.
The threat Baker poses taking set pieces is something that Seymour wants to take advantage of moving forward.
“The service is quality, and we’ve got a lot of big bodies in the box,” Dennis said. “We finally scored off of a set piece today on the corner kick, and I’m really proud of that. We need to do that more.”
Before Seymour’s season started, Dennis told The Tribune that the defense would be the strength of the team and that scoring might be a struggle at times.
So far through five games, Seymour has scored 10 goals — half of them coming last night.
“It’s getting better,” Dennis said of the offense. “You can see the possession, you can see the pass strings in the middle of the field are getting better.”
Seymour led Jeff in shots 11-4 and in corners 9-2.
Seymour is now 3-1-1 (1-0 HHC) and will host Columbus East on Thursday, with JV starting at 5:30 p.m. The Owls’ JV team beat Jeff 2-0 on Tuesday as well.
“I think we’re a good team, I think they’re a good team,” Dennis said. “It’s a rivalry game. It’s going to be hard fought. It’s going to be tactically sound soccer from both sides. Tomorrow’s training session is gonna be really important as we get ready for that, but it’s gonna be a big night Thursday night.”