By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  The Western Christian/Amity Boys Soccer team didn’t back down against Kennedy Wednesday afternoon for their Senior Night for their two seniors.

A rebuilding year of sorts for the Pioneers after several strong seasons in the 3A/2A/1A Classification with a plethora of youth gaining Varsity experience that was going up against an upstart Trojans team in its first year of playing soccer.  Pressuring the Kennedy squad in the 1-1 tie the two squads had in the 3A/2A/1A Special District 2 despite only gaining a Henry Hewman goal with two minutes remaining.  

“It just gave us something to look forward to for the next game in knowing what we can do with the ball,” Newman said.  “(Kennedy) was a tough team, but I think we need to come out stronger.  We could’ve done better if we came out stronger in that first half and even the first half of the second half.  It’s been big though, we had to rebuild a lot in order to be at the next level when it comes to next year.  We just need to build team chemistry and stuff.”

The Trojans led much of the game, a first half goal by Josiah Martinez, held strong through the barrage of pressure by the Western Christian/Amity offense.  The squad has shown glimpses this Fall with two wins already on the year and are looking for their first league win of the season with Delphian/Willamina and Yamhill-Carlton coming to Mount Angel to close out the regular season.

“It was our goal.  We just need to keep playing hard and just help our team, just keep developing and just keep pushing harder,” Martinez said.  “It was good, we could’ve done better. Be more louder, be more clear and just talk, go from there.  That’s all we can do.  It’ll be a lot better if our team talks way more.

Kennedy’s 2-5-2 overall and 0-3-2 in league with the Dragons of Delphian coming to town Friday for a 4:15pm game.  The Pios, riding high from the late goal, head to Gervais Saturday morning for a 11am game before closing out the season at Dayton Wednesday at 7pm.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald