AUGUSTA — By the time the 38th minute rolled around, Gardiner’s sluggish start was a distant memory.
With five goals in a 20-minute span, the Tigers rolled to a shortened 8-0 win over rival Cony in a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference boys soccer game Thursday evening. Junior Kian Alves struck for the hat trick, while classmate Alex Taylor added two goals and two assists in a dominant performance.
“We played really well,” Taylor said after the victory, which improved Gardiner to 5-1-1 at the midpoint of the season. “We knocked the ball around, moved it pretty well. … If we keep playing like we played tonight, I think we’ll have a pretty good season. Maybe a states run.”
The game was stopped in the 61st minute by the state’s new mercy rule, which considers games completed when a team has an eight-goal lead with under 20 minutes remaining in full time.
Cony (2-5-0) dropped its fourth straight decision after winning two out of three to open the year.
It took until the 18th minute for the Tigers to finally break through, despite plenty of early possession without a lot of promise on the attack. Taylor’s corner kick from the left side found Alves’ noggin, which he nodded home in traffic for the opening salvo.
Five minutes later, Taylor dropped in front of the Rams’ back four to slot a perfect pass cross-field along the carpet for Alexx Roy — which Roy stepped into for a bar-down strike from 25 yards out.
“That’s my second goal here, so it was a pretty emotional moment,” Roy said.
Though Taylor, Brady Peacock and Alves would each add Gardiner goals before the intermission it was Roy’s effort that got the Tigers’ humming along.
“I didn’t love our start,” said Gardiner coach Nick Wallace. “But we’re playing better. I still think we’re waiting to see our leaders step up and we need to work on our communication, but we’re playing much better, much faster. We’re seeing the simple one more often than we were. I think it’s coming.”
But Wallace loved the work from Roy, a junior transfer from Richmond, who has dropped from his preferred role of outside midfielder to give the Tiger back line some bite.
“I like it because I get to play the ball with a lot of time now,” Roy said of the transition. “I don’t have to rush every single pass and worry about where every player is on the field now. It’s just hard not to jump in so early like you did as a midfielder.”
“That’s one thing that he’s brought to this group,” Wallace said. “He plays great balls into the box, and I wish he could get on more of them. But to come in and be the guy that he is for us, that’s huge.”
Cony’s Cohen Parker (13) and Odai Al Hoshan (20) collide with Gardiner’s Aiden Paradis during a boys soccer game Thursday in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Taylor picked Gardiner up where it left off at the start of the second half with his tally in the 42nd minute to make it 6-0 for the visitors, before Alves finished off the hat trick in the 49th minute and Chase Kanaris completed the scoring in the 57th.
The goals were welcome for a Gardiner team that has allowed only three against all season, but Wallace especially liked the effectiveness of producing eight goals on 24 shot attempts and 11 on-target chances.
“Today was the first day we had a good percentage of shots and goals,” Wallace said. “We’ve struggled. We’ve put 37 shots up and get five goals out of it, we’ve put 30 shots up and get two.
Tonight it was nice to see multiple guys put the ball in the back of the net.”
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