Marquette’s Indigo Catalano, center, clears the ball away from a Houghton player as the Redmen's Zane Phillips, front right, moves in on the play. (Photo courtesy MSHS Soccer)

By Journal Sports Staff

MARQUETTE — Slow starts became a thing of the past on Saturday when the Marquette Senior High School boys soccer team defeated Houghton 7-1 at the Kaufman Sports Complex on Saturday.

After scoring just once in the first half of a similar 8-1 victory over Sault Ste. Marie two days earlier, this time the Redmen delivered the knockout blow right away, scoring three goals in a five-minute span early on to improve their record to 12-0.

“It was a really good effort … and we executed the game plan flawlessly,” MSHS head coach Dan Salmon said.

“Offensively we had five different guys score and five guys with assists, which is better than we expected.”

Isaac Johnson opened Marquette’s scoring off a Ezra Pickard corner kick. Following a John Weber goal that came off a Zane Phillips free kick, just 10 seconds later team leading scorer Max Dawson intercepted the ensuing kickoff for an unassisted goal and a 3-0 halftime lead.

Dawson made it two in a row to open second-half scoring with an assist going to Hayden Byma, while Ethan Sandstrom made it 5-0 with an assist to Dawson.

Houghton broke the seal on Marquette goalkeeper Harrison Anthos’ shutout on a penalty kick, but Pickard restored the advantage and actually added to it with back-to-back goals on assists from Johnson and Byma for the final result.

Anthos finished by stopping three shots.

The Redmen take a week off before traveling to Minocqua, Wisconsin, for the Lakeland Union Invitational on Saturday.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.