By Dan Truttschel
Sports Correspondent
After a bit of a hiccup to start the week, the Big Foot-Williams Bay boys soccer team got back on track in convincing fashion Monday afternoon.
And it didn’t take long to right the ship.
Big Foot scored just three minutes into its Rock Valley Conference matchup with visiting East Troy and never looked back in a 6-0 victory.
The win improved the Chiefs to 5-3 overall and 2-2 in the RVC.
“This was a very important win for us as we try to get back into the contest at the top of the conference,” Big Foot coach Keith Blakeman said. “I thought we had an excellent team win. We executed well in the attack and saw four different players score.”
Brian Wolski put the Chiefs ahead to stay with an unassisted goal at the 3-minute mark, followed by another unassisted goal, this time by Christian Munoz, eight minutes later.
The Chiefs added three more first-half goals to put the game out of reach. Payson Partridge scored off an assist by Munoz, followed by two straight goals by Hamilton Smith one minute apart.
Octavio Hernandez and Alberto Huerta had assists on Hamilton’s two goals.
Partridge closed out the scoring three minutes after halftime with his second goal of the night.
Big Foot goalie Nicolas Tovar had four saves for the Chiefs.
“Nico made two vital saves to preserve the (shutout),” Blakeman said. “We possessed the ball and pressured them continuously. This was a great game for us.”
The win Monday came on the heels of a 2-1 effort and third-place overall at Saturday’s Big Foot Invitational.
Big Foot opened play with a 3-0 win over St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy, followed by a split in shootouts against Westosha Central and Racine Park.
Central earned the win in the first shootout, which sent the Chiefs to the third-place matchup, where they won that shootout over Park.
“The third-place game was very evenly matched,” Blakeman said. “We put pressure on their goal in the first half, and Park did the same to us.”
Sanchez gave the Chiefs the lead in the third-place matchup with an unassisted goal at the 36-minute mark before Park knotted the score 10 minutes into the second half to force the shootout.
Tovar finished the game with six saves for Big Foot.
“We were obviously disappointed that we could not reach the final and upset by conceding so late in the game, but the players were happy after the shootout ended,” Blakeman said.
The match with Central was even throughout until the shootout, which the Falcons won 5-4. Tovar had one “big” save, according to Blakeman that kept the game scoreless.
Big Foot scored three minutes into the match in its opening win over St. John’s, as Luke Bourneuf assisted Munoz to give the Chiefs the lead for good.
Bourneuf added a second goal at the 31-minute mark off an assist by Huerta, followed by a goal at the 45-minute mark by Omar Ocampo to close out the scoring.
Tovar had three assists.
“St. John’s worked hard the entire game, but we were able to mostly control the game’s tempo, hold possession of the ball and execute in our attack,” Blakeman said.
Big Foot was back in action Thursday night with an RVC road game at McFarland. The Chiefs then will travel to Jefferson Tuesday, Sept. 17, to face the Eagles at 6:45 p.m.
Chiefs drop two in RVC
The week started a little rough for the Chiefs, as they fell 3-2 Sept. 3 against visiting Evansville and 2-1 Sept. 5 at Whitewater.
Sanchez broke a scoreless tie against Whitewater with a goal off an assist by Hernandez at the 51-minute mark, but Whitewater answered with two straight goals to pick up the win.
Tovar had five saves in the loss.
Against Evansville, the Chiefs held a 2-0 halftime lead before the hosts rallied for three straight goals in an overtime win.
Ludovic Resendiz and Noah Matson each had unassisted goals for Big Foot. Tovar finished the night with three saves.
