Pope dominates in 7-0 win over Midtown, hat trick for Rylan Carter
On Friday, the Pope Greyhounds boys soccer team hosted the Midtown Knights in a non-region match up as both teams looked to build some momentum in the early part of the season as the Greyhounds at 2-1 looked for their second straight win and the Knights, at 1-2, looked to end their two game skid. With the match underway, Pope would find themselves up 2-0 in the first half with their first goal coming at 15:30 courtesy of a Diego Mateo goal and approximately five minutes later, a Pedro Fortes pass to Rylan Carter would result in the Greyhounds second goal.
And while Pope would end the first half with four shots, the Greyhounds defense played just as strong of a half as they held the Knights to no shots on goal. In the second, Midtown would get off to a much more aggressive start offensively getting their first shot on goal by Ian Shuler just three minutes into the half, but unfortunately Shuler's shot would sail just over the cross. However, the Greyhounds would get started offensively early as Fortes would give them a 3-0 lead with his first goal of the night coming six minutes into the half and approximately five minutes later, Fortes would take advantage of an empty net as Midtown's Matthew Norwood would attempt to save the goal but unable to do so as Fortes' ball rolled in with no obstruction to give Pope a 4-0 lead.
The Greyhounds dominance would continue throughout the second half as back to back unanswered goals by Carter would push the Pope lead to 6-0 and giving Carter the hat trick for the night. Pope would pick another late goal in route to the 7-0 win and improved to 3-1 on the season. "I thought the boys played really well. We've been working on combination playing in transition, I thought we did really well in that," Pope head coach, Jeff Welp said following Friday's win, giving his players praise for how they were able to work on "attacking runs" and dominate in the second half.
"I think there was a lot more space to work with as the game opened up and I thought we made a lot of runs," which Welp believed forced Midtown to play deeper in the defensive third giving Pope the room desired to "make those runs," Welp added. Pope will have a few days off and will return to the pitch on Tuesday when they take on Chamblee followed by back to back region matchups.
