Sault Ste. Marie goaltender Blaise Brzuchalski, left, makes a save as Marquette junior Alex Vermaat flips over his legs in the first half during their high school boys soccer game played at Marquette Senior HIgh School on Friday evening. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

“It’s a special group of young men and it’s hard to say goodbye in these games like this.” — DAN SALMON, Marquette boys soccer head coach, on the Redmen seniors

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MARQUETTE — Whenever Senior Night takes place, teams seem to want to put forth an extra bit of effort on their home field to give their upcoming graduates a good sendoff.

The Marquette Senior High School boys soccer team definitely did that Friday evening as the Redmen blew out Sault Ste. Marie 8-1 with senior Brett Wittler getting the game-winning goal in the first 20 minutes.

“We had five seniors here tonight and we just tried to play them as much as we could,” Marquette head coach Dan Salmon said. “It’s a special group of young men and it’s hard to say goodbye in these games like this.”

MSHS got on the scoreboard with just under 30 minutes left in the first half on a goal by sophomore Ezra Pickard, and less than two minutes later Wittler padded the Redmen’s advantage to 2-0.

The Redmen kept the ball in the Blue Devils’ defensive zone almost the entire half, and with 21:19 left before halftime, a goal by Nick Lindberg made it 3-0 Marquette.

The highlight of the contest came from the foot of Redmen sophomore Nick Asmus. After scoring four goals against Iron Mountain last week, Asmus dribbled around two defenders in the SSM zone and fired a shot off the left post and into the back of the net to give Marquette a 4-0 lead going into the second half.

“Nick has continued to impress us from the beginning of the season till now and the scary thing is he’s getting better every game,” Salmon said. “We executed our game plan in the first half, and then even in the second half what we wanted to do is what we did out there.”

With less than 33 minutes left in the game, junior Michael Poggi put the Redmen up by five by scoring on a penalty kick, and a few minutes after that, fellow junior Camden Larson made it 6-0 Marquette.

The Blue Devils did get on the board with 19:55 left on a goal by Gavin Aikens. However, Marquette answered back less than six minutes later on a tally by senior Ben Gostomski, and with 2:14 remaining Max Dawson scored to put the finishing touch on the victory.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.