Wilmington erupts for nine goals against Momence in first win

MOMENCE − While the rain was falling on the field on Friday afternoon in Momence, the goals came pouring in off the feet of the Wilmington girls soccer team.

The Wildcats scored early and often, finding the back of the net five times in a five-minute span early in the contest, and then scattered four more goals throughout the rest of the half to end the game early at halftime with a 9-0 win.

They improved to 1-3 on the season and bounced back from a 10-3 loss to Reed-Custer at home Thursday. Senior Alaina Clark was held off the scoreboard in that loss, but scored four goals Friday to collect her third multi-goal match of the season.

Audrey Powlick added three goals for her second straight multi-goal effort. Addison VanDuyne scored her second goal of the season and Aliyah Sanchez got her first. Clark and VanDuyne each had three assists, Powlick had two and Hannah Basinger had one.

Wilmington coach Travis Ivanoff said he was happy to see his team get off to a hot start after struggling early on in their three losses, and also glad to see the continued strong play of Clark.

“We moved a couple of girls around, and we’ve been having a couple of rough starts here to begin with, but it’s good to get a win out,” he said. “We’ll be back at it next week and working the best we can. I’m very happy with Alaina Clark. She’s still going really strong. She’s happy with her performance, I’m happy with her performance, and we’ll keep working to improve.”

Momence dropped to 0-3 on the season. They opened the season on March 22 with a pair of matches, losing the first to a still-unbeaten Herscher team 7-0 and the second 4-1 against St. Edward.

Momence coach Tomlyn Brza said the team is still working on ramping things up on the season and putting themselves in a position to play more competitively going forward.

“I think the biggest thing is we need to definitely be more competitive,” she said. “It’s something we’re working on. This is only my second year in the program, and I think we’re working every day to get more competitive. Just working on touches, just doing what we need to do to make sure that the stoppage doesn’t happen as often.”

As they move through the rest of the season, Brza said she wants to keep seeing the team keep improving when it comes to possessing the ball, and just in general keep translating work in practice onto the field on game day.

“We are getting better every game at our passes and we’re able to connect more,” she said. “I was seeing some really nice plays between my players creating some triangles and creating some opportunity. I can’t really ask for anything more for that. Things that we’re working on in practice too, I’m definitely seeing some glimpses of that in games.”

For Wilmington, Ivanoff said a focus going forward is to keep the program in good position, not just to finish this season strong, but to keep rolling into future seasons as well. They can do this by finding time to get younger players on the field, like they were able to on Friday.

“I want to definitely see the program continue, going with the underclassmen and getting some game experience out there when we can,” he said. “We tried that today, but we’re definitely trying to make a transition. Coaches are always thinking about the next game and next week and next year. I try to keep the girls focused on this game. We’re just going to continue to work as hard as we can.”