Perryville soccer team debuts with 4-0 win vs. Poplar Bluff

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- The Perryville Pirates wasted no time in picking up where they left off last season.

The Pirates, who were a Class 2 quarterfinalist and finished with a 25-4 record last season, scored two early goals in christening their 2014 campaign with a 4-0 victory over Poplar Bluff on Tuesday.

"We seen a really good team," Poplar Bluff coach Steven Edwards said. "Hats off to them, they are a well-coached team. They work the ball well, they make their runs well and they execute soccer well. They are a quarterfinal team, and they are 11 solid again this year."

With the heat index around 97 degrees to start the game, Perryville coach Jerry Fulton thought his team came out a little slow.

"We came out a little sluggish at first, being our first game," Fulton said. "I just didn't think we were as sharp as we should have been right off the bat.

"I say that and we score two goals in three minutes. I just didn't think in the first half we looked as well as we did in the second half as far as our possession goes."

Senior Matthew Moran put the first goal on the board. Moran booted a free kick that bent into the right corner of the net from 35 yards out 32 minutes, 27 seconds into the game.

"He's pretty good at those," Fulton said. "The guys work on this stuff in practice and him and Luke [Schlichting] work on a lot of those things together. It wouldn't have surprised me if either one of them would have pulled that shot off."

Just over three minutes later, Schlichting found a wide-open Eann Bergman in the box to make it 2-0.

The Pirates added a goal with 18:27 left in the game when Conner Stark scored off a pass from Kyle Wood.

Bergman scored the final goal with 6:30 left, rifling a point-blank shot past Mules senior goalkeeper Jose Reyes.

The Mules didn't have many scoring chances. The best one came when senior Jose Ventura found space up the middle but shot high and wide about midway through the first half. The Mules also had a scramble in front of Perryville's net late in the game, but Perryville goalkeeper Luke Dobbelare grabbed possession.

Reyes made six saves for the Mules, while Dobbelare made two saves.

Fulton felt the Mules played a solid game against his Pirates.

"Poplar Bluff was ready," he said. "They were in the game. You could tell they were fired up to play. My hat's off to coach Edwards. He had his team ready to play."

The Pirates also won last year's meeting, 4-0.

The teams will meet again Sept. 4 in the first round of the Notre Dame SoccerFest.