The Red Eddies played their biggest rival even in the first half, but the second half was all Blue Devils, as they scored all three of their goals after halftime in a 3-0 win at Don Roux Field.
Lewiston coach Mike McGraw talked about a few adjustments his team made during halftime, including moving his wing players in and putting Muktar Ali in the middle. But as far as senior captain Maulid Abdow was concerned, the only thing that needed to change was the goal his team was shooting at.
In the second half the Blue Devils (4-0) were aiming at the goal nearest their bench. Their aim improved.
“This is our half right here. This is our goal,” Abdow said. “We’ve scored the most goals on this goal.”
Abdow put the first two goals in for Lewiston. The first was started by a “beautiful” pass — according to McGraw — from Ali in his own defensive end to Ben Musese on the left side. Musese then hit Abdow in stride to the right of the goal, and Abdow powered the shot past EL goalie Owen Mower.
“When we could put Ben in, he changed the pace up front,” McGraw said.
The second goal was an individual effort from Abdow. Getting the ball himself on the left side, he slithered his way through defenders toward the middle, then curled a shot into the top-right corner of the goal from 20-plus-yards out.
“Too much FIFA. I love FIFA,” Abdow said. “I was watching too much Ronaldinho videos before I came here. Took the ball from here, went down the line, shot it. Crazy.
“Coach was like, ‘If you get it off 30 yards, 20 yards, take it.’ So I took the shot.”
Ali capped the scoring with a low shot from the left side of the box under Mower. All three goals came in a 13-minute span, with Abdow’s just four minutes apart.
In the first half, and up until that point in the second, first-year EL coach Tim Mains liked the way his team was playing.
“Honestly I thought our guys fought hard all game long, with the exception of maybe that … span where they scored all three of their goals,” Mains said. “I thought we played our best span was probably that first 10 minutes of the second half. We started to control the flow.”
The Red Eddies (2-2) got physical with their rivals, something McGraw said his team will have to deal with all season long. But Ali found space in the middle for his pass to start the first goal, Musese had breathing room on the sideline for his assist, and Abdow was well past his defender to score the goal.
Mains said the blur of goals took his team right out of a game they were squarely in through 50 minutes.
“It stinks, but we got to learn next-play mentality,” Mains said. “We can’t get caught up on something that’s already happened.”
“You got to give EL credit,” McGraw said. “They took us right out of what we wanted to do in the first half. Then you got to give our guys credit because we adapted, and we played a little better part of our game.
“People are going to be coming right after us, and we have to be able to be resilient.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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