By RYAN WALKER
Noah Wike and the Blackhawk boys’ soccer team spoiled the home opener for Norwell with a 5-0 victory Thursday night.
The Braves (1-0) went 10-6-1 last year and came into this season having returned its primary goal scorers. Wike led the team last year with 24 of them and is off to a good start this year as the senior tallied a hat trick.
“He’s solid — he’s got a strong foot,” first-year Norwell head coach Kiel Nunn said after the game. “The kid can handle the ball well, and we couldn’t find a solution to keep him out. Props to him. He definitely earned it.”
At the end of the first half, the Knights trailed by three but didn’t tell the full story and how close the game was on the field.
The two teams shared possession equally through the first 13 minutes. The Braves then got the first goal from Wike on a penalty kick right in front of the net on a perhaps 50-50 call, and just a minute later, caught the Knights sleeping and added another by Cody Zimmerman.
Nunn said his team had a mental letdown and wasn’t prepared for the Braves’ attack right after the goal.
The second goal might have woken up the Knights, as they added some pressure on multiple chances until the end of the half.
The first was off of a corner kick that went just a few feet from the goal before Braves goaltender Kaleb Koepp snatched the ball away from a Norwell attacker. Soon after, Kyler Morris got loose for a one-on-one with the goaltender, but Koepp sprinted up out of the goalie box and made a slide tackle to scoop up the ball before a kick could have been attempted. The third was by Noah Shamerloh, who had an open header falling toward the net but went right into the hands of Koepp.
“That’s something that we’ve been working on all week,” Nunn said on the chances. “We’re a little short on pieces, so the really big thing is we didn’t have the speed to get to that ball. That was definitely planned and the way we wanted to run it. They ran exactly what I thought they were going to run, and we were set up to handle that, but just a couple bad passes here, a couple missed balls, and the next thing you know, it just kind of snowballs.”
Before the end of the half, Wike snuck a ball through on the right side of the field and kicked it low and to the left of the goal to make it 3-0.
Norwell didn’t have as many chances in the second half, with just three shots on goal. Blackhawk added the third by Wike only two minutes in and the final of the night by senior Troy Kelley for a 5-0 advantage.
Despite the score, coach Nunn was happy that his team didn’t let up in that first half and kept playing hard.
“They (Blackhawk) were solid, obviously well-coached, and really knew the game,” Nunn said. “I was proud of our guys the way that they stood in there. We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to sure up, but they didn’t quit and played for the full-time.”
Norwell’s next match will be at Woodlan for a 10 a.m. start Saturday, Aug. 19.
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