Knights pound Jay (09/03/04)

PORTLAND — Some teams don’t see this much scoring in an entire season.

In five of the Jay County boys soccer team’s six games this year the winning team has scored in double digits. Thursday the Patriots were on the wrong end of that scoring barrage for the second time in a 10-0 loss to the Norwell Knights.

“We just have got to find out who we are, what we’re doing,” said Jay County coach Alan Bailey. “It’s going to be up to the kids. Something’s not right, so we’ve just got to figure out what it is.”

Jay County (3-3) also dropped a 10-0 decision to Noblesville earlier this year. It has defeated Monroe Central 10-1, Delta 10-0 and Connersville 11-4.

“We’ve been playing pretty solid so far, but our biggest problem has been our attack and they started to figure out that tonight,” said Norwell coach Jeremy Steele. “We kind of picked it up and looked a lot better in the attacking third tonight.”

Norwell took a while to get its offense in full motion Thursday, but when it did it had an extra gear or two the Patriots could not match.

With a 1-0 lead thanks to a goal by Josh Ackerman 10 minutes into the contest, the Knights (5-1) found their stride near the end of the first half.

At the 11:13 mark Charley Moore took a pass from near midfield and knocked a one-timer past Jay County goalie Trent Bailey. With 5:55 to play Nathan Meyer barely beat Bailey to a loose ball to knock it in for the score and a 3-0 nothing halftime advantage.

Norwell never let up, with Jared DeArmond scoring three times in the first 10 minutes of the second half for a hat trick and a 6-0 lead.

DeArmond cruised through the left side of the defense about two minutes after the second-half kickoff, scoring past new goalie Derek Mills at the 37:45 mark. He scored again on a play in which Mills called for the ball, but it skipped off a defender’s foot and into the net at 30:31.

The sophomore tallied his third goal 31 seconds later, slipping through the right side of the defense with ease.

“We had an eye-opening day yesterday in practice,” said Steele. “They realized that if they work hard and cause a lot of movement across the top and cause some confusion things will open up for them and they will be able to get in to score.”

The Knights scored four more times against the struggling Patriot defense for the final margin.

Jay County was playing without injured senior defenseman Nick May. But, Bailey said it is something the team should be able to overcome.

“We’re not playing very good defense,” said Bailey. “We have no idea what we’re doing on defense (right now).”

Patriots will look to bounce back Tuesday when they visit Muncie Burris Tuesday at 4:45 p.m.[[In-content Ad]]