Unbeaten Surge boot Shadow
The problem with youth is that it’s usually reliable for one thing – inconsistency.
The Spokane Shadow played a good first half, with league-leading and undefeated Cascade lucky to be tied at 2.
Cascade dismantled the Shadow in the second half, though, scoring three times without a response to win 5-2 in front of 1,166 fans on Fireworks Night at Joe Albi Stadium.
Cascade scored the match-winner in the 65th minute when Matt Clark chested a pass from Andriy Budnyy right to the foot of midfielder Carlos Calderson, who beat Shadow keeper Dade Smith. Budnyy scored in the 76th minute, and Clark in the 88th to cap the scoring.
“I don’t know that it was a matter of them having too many chances,” said Shadow player-coach Kieran Barton, who logged 80 minutes as a defender. “They finish their chances very well. I think that was the big difference today between them and us. They’re a little bit more seasoned, so when they got their five chances, they put five of them in. Every time we made a mistake, they made us pay for it.”
The Shadow (4-4-0, 12 points) were playing without forward Brett Hite and defender Austin Washington – both competing in a national U-19 tournament – and injured forward Grant Lundberg.
Coming off a 1-0 loss Friday night at Yakima, Spokane pressured the Surge (7-0-1, 21 points) on offense, bouncing back after an early score by Cascade.
In the 20th minute, Dustin Allbery beat his defender down the left side of the field, cut back at about 6 yards and beat the goalkeeper, the ball banging off the far post. It bounced right to Jake Moug, who scored his third goal of the year into the empty net.
Spokane briefly took the lead in the 30th minute, when Moug got his head on Ben Funkhouser’s corner kick and the ball bounced around in front of the net. Manuel Arceo finally got a foot on it, driving the ball past Surge goalie Aaron Tredway for the lead.
“I thought we made it hard for them to get out of the back,” Barton said of forwards Moug, Allbery and Arceo. “They didn’t come out of the back very comfortably with the ball very often, which is a good sign for us.”
Hite, Washington and Lundberg should all be back within two weeks, missing the two-match homestand next weekend against Abbotsford and Yakima, but likely returning to play June 24 at Cascade.
“You look at the average age, we’re probably about 18, 19 years old,” said Allbery. “I mean, we had a 14-year-old on the field tonight. We’re only going to get better. We had some guys out today, but we don’t want to make excuses. Things will happen.”