PHOTOS BY ROCKY ROSS

The Fife Trojans scored 10 goals, including seven in the second half, in their shutout win against the Chimacum Cowboys March 25. Joe Kyle (10), Jesus Esquivel and Chris Kilcup each had a pair of goals, while Armando Espinoza (18), Phillip Croak (16), Dain Landholm and Cameron Andrews combined for the other four goals in the ballgame.

Trojans score big win over Chimacum

By Ben Miller

The Fife Trojans boys soccer team arrived at Surprise Lake Middle School for their match up against the Chimacum Cowboys with their cleats laced up and ready to score some goals. From start to finish, the Trojans dominated the Cowboys, scoring 10 total goals, including seven in the second half, in the shutout victory.

“We have a lot of good players this year who play high-level soccer, and they just do their thing,” said Fife coach Anthony Crudo. “We just let them play and when they play well they look really good.”

After the game started, the Trojans didn’t wait very long to put their first goal between the posts. In the second minute of the game, junior Joe Kyle scored the first of his two goals to put Fife up 1-0 early on.

“We got some key players back from not doing their physicals and stuff like that, and we just played well,” Kyle said. “Now we’re finally a complete team because we got guys back that we didn’t have.”

In the 10th minute, the Trojans found the scoreboard again when senior Dain Landholm took a pass and fired it from the top of the box, past the goalkeeper and into the right side of the goal. The Fife offense, however, went quiet for the next 28 minutes.

Well, as quiet as an offense that scores 10 goals in a game can get. For most of the first half, the Trojans kept the ball on their side of midfield. Chimacum was able to finagle the ball to their side a couple of times, but came up empty each time.

Junior Cameron Andrews joined in on the scoring fun in the 38th minute when he had the ball come down right in front of him after bouncing off the head of the goalie. He put the ball in just a couple of feet past the goalkeeper and a defender to take a 3-0 lead into halftime.

“The other team was a little outmatched, to be honest,” Crudo said. “They’ve had a tough season, and we’re just starting to get going but we’ll play better as the season goes on.”

With three goals in the first half, the Trojans were already on fire offensively. But in the second frame, things actually kicked up a notch for Fife. Senior midfielder Philip Croak put the first goal on the board in the second half in the 52nd minute when he took a pass of his chest in transition, controlled it on the dribble and shot it past the diving goalkeeper.

In the 64th minute, senior Chris Kilcup had a shot by Andrews deflect off the goalie and right to him in front of the goal. He rocketed it between the post for one of his two scores on the night. It was the first of three goals that the Trojans scored in a four-minute period.

“We just had a lot of passing,” said sophomore Jesus Esquivel. “In the first half we were being kind of selfish, but in the second half we just passed it and we got the goals.”

With 74 minutes down in the game and six left to go, seven different players had scored seven goals for the Trojans. But starting with Kyle’s goal in the 74th minute, three Fife players added their second goals of the night in a three-minute period. Kilcup and Esquivel were the other two with a pair of goals.

“The problem when you get this many goals is that you think it’s really easy,” Crudo said. “And soccer is a 1-0 game and you have to be ready to get your one goal and be happy with it – hopefully, we won’t get too over confident.”

The Trojans head to Eatonville for their next game, March 27 at 4 p.m. It is the first game in Nisqually League play for Fife this season.

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