Undefeated so far this season, Powell River Villa sent a strong message to the rest of the league when it ran over Juan de Fuca 8-0 on Sunday, September 28.
The visitors arrived in Powell River with a win and a loss in the young season but fell to under .500 in a game that was over in the early stages.
At just the eight-minute mark Brody Harry rambled 20 yards, beat a couple of defenders and dished the ball off to Billy Bagiopoulos who finished with a clean shot to the lower left corner.
Harry did it all on his own for the next chance when he broke free of his check at 14 minutes but narrowly missed when his shot careened off the left post.
Three minutes later Kye Taylor set Jake Kenmuir free with a nice pass and the young striker rapped it off the post to go up 2-0.
Villa’s third goal was a free kick from 30 yards that sailed into the pack where Taylor was waiting.
“It was in between my head and my foot so I chested it down into the ground,” he said, “and it popped over the goalie’s head.”
His goal came at 21 minutes and Villa must have had at least five more good chances to extend the lead before the break.
They did add one more when Taylor spotted Bagiopoulos heading for the gap and led him with a perfect lob that the streaking Villa forward chased down and then chipped in perfectly over the keeper’s head.
Villa was riding a comfortable 4-0 lead at the half and coach Chris McDonough warned his team about letting up.
“I wanted to keep the clean sheet, definitely,” he said, “but we wanted more of the same. Don’t give it away cheaply and make them work to get the ball back.”
Villa started the second like it ended the first and on one rush Harry, who raised havoc for Juan de Fuca all day, was tackled by the Juan de Fuca keeper who received a card for aggressiveness.
Substitutions started to come in for the home side and Villa got a nice goal from the fresh legs of Dylan Buckle. He asked for and received a pass that set him free and he went bar down from 14 yards out for Villa’s fifth goal.
The 6-0 goal was a great individual effort by Rob Devlin who won a ball from a defender and then whirled and fired his kick in at 34 minutes.
Harry capped off a great performance at 40 minutes when he was chased by a defender all the way from centre, won the race and beat the keeper to make it 7-0.
Curt McMillan rounded out the scoring with a great rush down the left side and a clean shot to the lower right corner to make the final 8-0 with a minute to go.
“Definitely lots of options going forward,” said a happy Taylor. “We’ve got some dynamic young players and we’re dangerous. We’re going to create chances and we’re going to be tough match-ups for teams. We’re very dynamic and hard to mark.”
“We had a pretty good team here today and everyone was firing,” said McDonough. “When that happens we’re a tough team to deal with. Our attacking players are a handful for anyone.”
One of those attackers, Kenmuir, said, “The big thing about our team is lots of fast wingers, fast outside backs and we put the ball to them really quickly—something we didn’t do last year as much, but we didn’t really have an anchor to play around. This year we have Kye, Daniel [Paul] and [Devlin] which is nice.”
There were smiles all around for the offensive burst but Alberni Valley, after just three games, leads Powell River in the goal-scoring category 21-13.
Next up for Villa is a road game against Fernwood Town FC on Saturday, October 4.
