Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – As hot as sixth-ranked Solon has been over the past several weeks senior Gabe Yetley had been in a bit of a cold spell.

The 10^th leading scorer in Class 1A Yetley had scored just one goal in the past three matches following a torrid start to the season.

Yetley snapped out of his brief goal-scoring cold stretch with a pair of goals and added an assist on Tuesday as Solon remained red-hot with a 3-1 win over Independence in a WAMAC Conference match at sunny Spartan Stadium in Solon.

“He has had a big bullseye on him and he’s been a little frustrated but he’s worked through it,” Solon coach Jeremy McMurrin said. “You can tell he is super dangerous, every time he touches the ball he is so dangerous and that’s either scoring goals or setting goals up too.”

Yetley scored the first two goals and found Dillon Bruck for a goal late as Solon improved to 11-3 on the season and 7-2 in WAMAC play with its sixth consecutive win.

Independence dropped to 3-8 and 2-6 in conference play with its fifth consecutive loss.

“It felt great to get a couple of goals to go against a pretty decent team,” Yetley said. “We got a couple of goals that we have been practicing so it felt really good to have that pay off and it’s just always great to score.”

Yetley got Solon on the board when he scored off a rebound attempt from his own shot with 11:39 left in the first half.

A Yetley shot from inside the box ricocheted off the hands of Independence keeper Jacob Yexley and Yetley slammed home the rebound from point blank range to give Solon a 1-0 lead.

“It was kind of bad shot, I should have scored on the first one,” Yetley said. “That second one it’s just all about sticking with it and fighting through the exhaustion.”

Yetley gave the Spartans some cushion when he slotted in a perfect cross from William Wittich from right in front of the goal less than 12 minutes into the second half.

The goal was the team-high 20^th of the season for Yetley and gave the senior six his sixth multi-goal game of the season but first since scoring twice against Maquoketa on April 27.

“Both Dillon and I have heard coaches and players yelling, ‘get on 33, get on 11, don’t let them touch the ball’,” Yetley said. “It’s slightly frustrating but we’ve been playing through it and it feels nice to get some space and play your game and get away from players a little bit.”

Independence made it interesting late when Ryan Eddy cut the lead to 2-1 with a goal with 14:06 left.

Solon had the answer as Bruck scored off a Yetley feed on a through ball with 5:51 left to put the match out of reach.

The goal was the 16 of the season for Bruck.

“Gabe had a beautiful ball through to me and I just saw it come in and saw the goalie come out and shot it back post,” Bruck said. ““It feels good because there are always three guys on you that are just tight to you. Anytime you can score a goal it feels good.”

Solon outscored opponents 18-1 during a 3-0 start to the season but lost three of its next five matches including back-to-back losses to 1A second-ranked Dyersville Beckman and Regina.

Since those consecutive losses in span of less than 24 hours in April the Spartans are perfect.

“We are growing up,” McMurrin said. “Coming into the season we had Gabe and (William) Wittich and after that we had seven minutes of varsity experience. We are growing up and getting comfortable and that group of Marion, Beckman and Regina is tough so we knew there was a chance that we were going to take a few losses there but they responded well.”

Solon has outscored opponents 17-4 during its current four-match winning streak and hasn’t allowed more than one goal in a match during that stretch.

“We had a lot of new guys so it took us a couple of games to get us going but we are starting to work together,” Bruck said. “These last couple of games we’ve been connecting well.”

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