The Allen Community College men’s soccer team took down Southeast in their opening round of the Region VI playoff match Wednesday evening, 6-2.
After going down by one goal in the opening minutes of the match, Allen (12-3-1; 7-2) responded with three first half goals followed by three more in the second half.
The Allen win was the third of the year over the Southeast Storm, going 2-0 and 3-1 earlier in the season. Red Devil Thiago Fernandes also registered a pair of two-goal performances against Southeast this season.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence against them,” said Allen head coach Doug Desmarteau. “It’s hard to beat somebody three times but if you put the deck of cards out, we’ve got way more cards in our deck than they do and as long as we play our game that team’s not going to beat us.”
Southeast’s Rafael Smaga Brandao scored the first goal four minutes into the match. The assist came from Tyler Ratnik.
The Red Devil Thiago Fernandes then scored with his first of two goals off an assist from Leonardo Andognini to knot the match at 1-1. Midway through the first half, Fernandes scored again with an assist from Temesgn Tezera.
“Today we were nervous to start with and then we came back and put three away in like the next 10 minutes,” said Desmarteau. “They’re very resilient and there’s leadership and confidence in each other.”
Yuki Ikezaki delivered a goal between the pair of Fernandes scores which he dribbled in unassisted. The goal sent Allen to halftime leading Southeast, 3-1.
Allen’s Tavar Lawrence came out firing in the second half, scoring two goals to give the Devils the 5-1 advantage. Both of Lawrence’s goals were assisted by Fernandes in front of the net.
Southeast got on the board once more with 18 minutes remaining in regulation when Mike Jetzlaff took a pass from Sander Korte and scored from the right side of the box. The goal cut the Storm deficit to three goals, 5-2.
Patrick Alouidor came off the bench for Allen in a brief stint and made an immediate impact, footing the final goal of the night to give Allen the 6-2 advantage.
“It’s easier to continue to score goals than pack it in and not go at them because you could let a team back in it like that,” Desmarteau said. “We’ve been very successful at home. We’ll play at home on Sunday as well. Hopefully, we can take care of business.”
The Red Devils led the Storm in total shots, 15-8 and shots on goal through 90 minutes of regulation, 9-6.
Fernandes led the Allen offensive attack with five shots and four shots on goal, followed by Lawrence’s two shots on goal which he put in both as well as Ikezaki and Andognini’s two shots.
“Thiago’s a guy who should have scored 20 goals this year,” said Desmarteau. “Early on he wasn’t finding the nets and creating chances but in the last three games he’s got six goals and four assists. He’s on fire at the right time of the year.”
