By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  Brady Foster was on a mission Saturday afternoon for the Sprague-South Salem Lacrosse team.

Of the six goals scored in the first quarter of the Olympians 11-4 win Saturday afternoon at Olympic Stadium against Ridgeview, Foster scored four of them.  Pacing the co-op Sprague-South Salem team, who jumped out to a 8-1 lead in the second quarter of the mid-day victory.

Stepping in for Henry Kinanski at attacker, it was weird for sure points Foster, but was great in the meantime as Foster ended up scoring six times in the win.

“I haven’t played attack in a while and it felt pretty good getting some goals in,” Foster said with a smile.

Coming off their lone defeat to Thurston on April 1, the Olys have been on a tear as they’ve defeated Beaverton, Century and the Ravens to their 6-1 start.  The loss to the Colts served as a good eye-opener knowing what’s ahead with the end of their non-league slate and North Valley League play started on April 22 against Corvallis.

“Thurston was a reality check.  Everyone was like ‘oh man, we’ve won three games-in-a-row and then I think everyone realized that we need to put together a good offense running and get the defense settled.  Stuff like that,” Foster said.

As the offense cooled down after their strong start, the defense rose up to the challenge. Ridgeview struck twice to close out the first half and once more in the third quarter to pull within five, 9-4, going into the fourth quarter before the Sprague-South Salem defense shut the door on them.

The Olympian offense tacked on two more goals as the Sprague-South Salem offense produced double-digits goals for the fourth time in seven games this year.

“It was really nice once we felt the pace of the game, we were able to communicate well.  The slides were good, it could be better, but from my perspective it felt really good and it felt solid,” Sprague-South’s Goalie Tanner Reid said.  “That Thurston game showed us what we really need to work on.  We definitely have some holes here and there.

“I think it just opened our eyes to ‘hey.  We’re here to play’ and if we want to win, we got to work harder.  We need to look at every little mistake that we make and just go through it with everybody.  We need to talk to see everyone’s perspective on what they need to work on and just need to communicate.”

The Olys close out their non-league slate with a home-game with Sisters at April 12 (8pm) and road trips to Hillsboro on April 15^th (7pm) and Wilsonville on April 19 (7pm) before kicking off North Valley Conference play on April 22 at Corvallis High School.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald