By Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – The Class 3A Substate 3 final between No. 13 Waterloo West and No. 14 West High was pretty much what everyone expected.

For 40 minutes.

No one could have predicted what went down at Barker Field after halftime on Saturday afternoon.

West High scored six second half goals and downed Waterloo West 7-0 to return to the state tournament for the second straight season and the 17th time in the past 18 seasons

“I definitely wasn’t expecting 7-0,” West High senior Zach Logsden said. “I definitely wasn’t expecting that but we had the opportunities and we took advantage of it.”

West High (13-7) scored three goals in a span of less than five minutes to open the second half and never let up while avenging a 3-2 loss to the Wahawks in the regular season final on May 18.

The Trojans will get another rematch in the opening round of the Class 3A state tournament when they face top-ranked Cedar Rapids Prairie (19-0) on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Cownie Soccer Park in Des Moines.  

“This was a dream come true to be honest,” West High senior Andersen said. “We knew home field advantage would change the game a little bit but a 7-0 win that was pretty incredible.”

Andersen scored twice during the six-goal West High second half and assisted on two other goals as West High put the game away.

Kelvin Encarnacao added two goals for West High as five different Trojans scored on Saturday.

“We knew it was going to be a tight game especially in the first half they were going to come out strong but we have the depth coming off the bench,” Andersen said. “That really showed in the second half on a hot day.”

After closing the regular season with back-to-back one-goal losses to Cedar Rapids Washington and Waterloo West the Trojans outscored opponents 15-1 in a pair of substate wins.

“I knew that the mistakes we made two weeks ago were correctable and we concentrated on that,” West High coach Brad Stiles said. “We made it a goal to have a shutout today and we got that so I think it went well for us.”

West High took control early when Encarnacao knocked in a loose ball in front of the net off a West High corner kick less than eight minutes into the match.

The goal came less than a minute after West High keeper Zach Frisbie came up with a save on a Waterloo West corner kick.

“Right before that there was a corner kick on our end and I said if this goes in it could be serious trouble,” Stiles said. “We came down and scored off a corner and it changed the whole game.”

It stayed 1-0 for the rest of the half but West High quickly put things out of reach after halftime.

Andersen converted a penalty kick after being fouled in the box to make it 2-0 just 30 seconds into the half.

It was all West High the rest of the way.

“The penalty kick was huge especially with it happening right away in the second half,” Andersen said. “I think it caught them by surprise and after that we just kept the momentum.”

Michael Schilling scored off an Andersen assist in the 44th minute and less than a minute later Andersen found Patrick Shirazi to make it 4-0 West High.

“When we went 2-0 up we just said ‘we aren’t done’,” Andersen said. “We just kept scoring and playing as a team.”

Encarnacao and Andersen both added their second goals of the match to push the lead to 6-0 and Anton Ndayishimiye headed in a Micah Frisbie cross in the 77th minute to cap the scoring.

“I think we are coming together,” Logsden said. “We got a few guys back from injury today that made a difference and I think we are playing are best at the right time.”