It's coming together

Cadillac senior Adam Hodges dribbles the ball while being chased by Reed CityÕs Travis Mix during SaturdayÕs non-conference contest at the CASA fields. The Vikings blanked the Coyotes 7-0.

CADILLAC — The years haven’t been kind to them.

So as a fairly large group of Cadillac soccer players hit their senior year, maybe things are looking up.

The Vikings picked up their fourth win of the young season, beating Reed City 7-0 in a non-league contest Saturday at the CASA fields.

While four wins isn’t necessarily anything to write home about, it is one more than the Vikings (4-1-1 overall, 1-0 BNC) had all of last season.

To Cadillac senior Walden Sterrett, this feeling is much better.

“This is the third year most of us have been together as a group,” he said. “This is the first year we’ve had a winning record after the first five games.

“We are having some fun and winning some big games.”

The first of those came last Thursday when the Vikings beat Alpena, giving them their first Big North win in more than a season.

Two big tests loom this week, though, as Cadillac hosts Traverse City Central Tuesday before going to Gaylord Thursday.

“We are playing really well as a team right now,” Cadillac coach Luke Rumohr said.

“The two games this week are big, though, to see how we can come off two good games and put a third together.”

Sterrett said the keys have been teamwork since a camp at Olivet College over the summer and some talented newcomers.

“We’ve got some strong underclassmen and some new talent in,” he added.

Two of those newcomers were responsible for the first three Cadillac goals Saturday.

The first came just 54 seconds into the contest when junior Sean Kennedy knocked a loose ball past the Reed City keeper to make it 1-0.

The second newcomer to contribute was junior Maveric Fekete, who was at Heritage Christian before moving out of state. He came back to town and is now a Viking.

On Saturday, he converted on a penalty kick to make it 2-0 at 17:51 of the first half and then made it 3-0 on a goal with four seconds left in the half off an assist from Dave Solce.

“I am pleased with the way we played and how we started off strong,” Rumohr said.

“We’ve been working on things like keeping the ball down low on shots and all that paid off to help us dictate the flow of the game.”

Cadillac blew the game wide open in the second half, getting a goal from Adam Hodges off a Trey Jones assist just 2:35 in.

Solce scored in the 56th minutes off a Fekete assist to make it 5-0 before Joey McClure scored in the 64th minute and Tyler DeCoeur scored in the 75th minute to finish it. Scott Fuller and Jeff Bruggema recorded the assists on those goals.

Drew Lindamood recorded his second straight shutout in the Cadillac nets.

Reed City hosts rival Big Rapids today, while Cadillac hosts TC Central Tuesday.