BELLVILLE — During his pregame skull session, Clear Fork coach Nate Gailey told his team to fire at will.
That’s just what the Colts did during the second half Friday at the Colt Corral.
Clear Fork scored eight second-half goals and cruised to a 9-0 win over Madison in the season opener.
Leading 1-0 at the half, Clear Fork scored twice in the opening two minutes of the second half and led 5-0 after the second of Wyatt Strong’s back-to-back goals with 31:46 remaining.
“I think sometimes we beat ourselves up if we miss shots,” Gailey said. “So I tried to remind them I don’t care if we miss. If we keep shooting, we give ourselves a chance.”
Senior midfielder and captain Seth Stoner ignited the Colts in the second half, scoring off a rebound with 39:27 to play. Less than a minute later, senior defender Chase Wortman got in on the act to make it 3-0. Strong followed with a pair of goals, the first with 32:29 to play and the second coming at the 31:46 mark.
“I didn’t expect that,” Gailey said of the four-goal outburst in the opening 10 minutes of the second half. “It just shows you that, the things we’ve been asking them to do, they did it and it showed up out here.”
Stoner added his second goal with 19:50 to play, making it 7-0.
“They just wanted it more. They beat us to every single ball,” veteran Madison coach Tim Lord said. “They outplayed us.”
Madison lost 16 seniors to graduation. The new-look roster includes 10 freshmen and sophomores, including freshman goal keeper Will Jamieson.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever started a freshman at goalie,” Lord said. “It’s a pretty hard task to come in as a freshman and be put in that situation.”
Teams found out earlier this week that the season could progress amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There were no preseason scrimmages, which Lord said the young Rams could have benefitted from.
“We didn’t have a chance to have any scrimmages, so we didn’t get to work out any of those kinks that we normally do,” Lord said. “But neither did they, so that’s not an excuse.”
The win was the first for Clear Fork over the Rams since 2015.
“I told them, ’It’s not just about this game. Let people know what you’re all about,’ ” Gailey said. “We needed to set the tone for the season.”
