Shadow Roll Seven Against Bigfoot Chris Larochelle Nets Two Goals And Two Assists In 7-0 Victory
They should bottle this stuff and save it for the 2002 U.S. World Cup team. The Spokane Shadow know how to to scooooore!
Their latest offensive onslaught resulted in a 7-0 win over the Seattle BigFoot Friday night at Albi Stadium. It was the third time this season the USISL Premier League Northwest Division leader beat a team by the score of 7-0.
In the last four games, the Shadow (7-1, 9-3 overall) have outscored their league rivals by a combined score of 21-3. Shadow keeper Josh Fouts recorded his second straight shutout Friday and his fourth this season.
For most of the game, Fouts stood alone guarding his team’s cage with his hands on his hips as the BigFoot unloaded just 10 shots to Spokane’s 25. Fouts made three saves to Pete van de Ven’s nine.
“Our whole midfield, along with the forwards and defenders, come out and attack,” said Spokane’s Chris LaRochelle. “I think that’s what helps us out a lot. The other teams don’t know who to come out and defend.”
Indeed. Six players were involved in Friday’s scoring. LaRochelle, who has played every field position this season, was credited with two goals and two assists. Jeff McAllister scored two goals. Brian Ching scored his team-leading 12th goal and added one assist. Simeon Enemuo replaced Ching midway through the second half and added a goal and an assist.
“We got our butts kicked,” said BigFoot coach Paul Hurme, whose team dropped to 5-3, 7-5. “They’re well-organized. They’ve got good players in all areas of the field. They don’t give anything away at all and their defenders don’t make any mistakes.”
But that wasn’t the case for one Seattle defender, who scored an own goal.
By the 38-minute mark, the Shadow had built a 3-0 lead. Ching feed a pass to McAllister at 9:00. McAllister’s went one-on-one on against keeper van de Ven for his first goal.
Alika Cosner passed to Ching at the 21:00 for the second goal and LaRochelle fed McAllister at the 38-mark.
Had the score stayed at 3-0 before the half, the visitors still would have had a chance. But 2 minutes before the half, BigFoot defender Skylar Nelson tried to boot a shot into the end zone. Instead, he ripped a clean kick past van de Ven and scored an own goal. LaRochelle was the last Shadow to attempt a shot and was credited with the goal that gave the Shadow a 4-0 halftime lead.
“Our player was at a decent position to knock it away,” Hurme said. “But things like that happen on nights like this.”
If that wasn’t enough to entertain the 952 Shadow fans, Spokane’s Kieran Barton 50-yard goal certainly did. Barton ripped a low line drive that carried over van de Ven’s head that made the score 5-0 with 25 minutes remaining.
“That’s a shot you try in practice just goofing around,” Shadow coach Sean Bushey said. “He’s always the one kicking balls around.”
TONIGHT Spokane at Cascade, 6:35 p.m. Radio: KKPL (630 AM)