John Bapst beat MDI 8-1 on Thursday afternoon, with seven different Crusaders getting on the board.
Kickoff was at 4 p.m., when temperatures hovered around 85 degrees with 90 percent humidity. Bapst paid no mind to the intense mugginess, relishing the opportunity to flex its depth.
Three bench players in senior Ellis Columber, senior Walter Coleman, and junior Laken Walker scored for John Bapst in the first half alone.
“It was good to get the bench on the field, with the heat,” head coach Jason Pangburn said.
Referees periodically called mandatory timeouts as a safety measure, so players could rest up and hydrate.
On the field, the Crusaders dominated possession all game and prevented MDI from launching many meaningful counterattacks. The Crusaders had 20 shots on goal.
“We always do possession-based activities in practice,” Pangburn said. “When we play unselfishly and set our teammates up, we’re really hard to guard.”
Junior captain Oscar Martinez was key in commanding the midfield and led all scorers with two goals.
Two minutes into the second half, Martinez scored off a nice give-and-go near MDI’s penalty box, making it 5-1 John Bapst.
Eight minutes later, senior Jack Derosier made it 6-1 on a free kick from roughly 25 yards out, low and toward the corner of the net.
“Our attack is very dynamic,” Martinez said. “We have people that can score all over the field.”
The victory for Bapst showed that they hadn’t lost their step, despite Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to Ellsworth and the season-ending injury to starting center back Soren Peterson last week against Hermon.
“Our three starting midfielders and three forwards are all goalscorers,” Pangburn said. “And we’ve got guys coming off the bench consistently providing good minutes. We’ve had 13 players score so far this season.”
Next up, the 3-1 Crusaders will travel to Presque Isle Saturday for a date with the 0-2 Wildcats. Presque Isle also lost to Ellsworth this past week, 3-2.
“Presque Isle and Ellsworth are good at kicking the ball forward and going after it, we’re not,” Pangburn said. “Ellsworth was really fast and got us to play their style, but we’ve got to play our style; the possession style.”