By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – The best weapon – on both ends of the field – stood in front of the Columbus East net.
Nothing was meek about goalie Ryder Meek. Not only did he make scoring difficult for Bedford North Lawrence, he kickstarted the East offense with thunderous blasts that were turned into fast-and-furious goals on the offensive half of the field.
Meek inherited the turf and recorded a rare hat trick (three assists) from the deepest defensive post, and freshman Blake Plummer scored twice as the Olympians broke out of their deadlock streak (three straight ties and five consecutive winless matches) with a resounding 7-1 victory over the Stars on Tuesday.
Three of the first four East goals had Meek’s fingerprints – OK, make that footprints – on them. The formula was simple. After making a save or gobbling up a long ball, Meek would blast a booming kick 50-plus yards. With one huge bounce off the turf, the ball was suddenly in striking territory, and the Olympians won the race for possession each time, taking shock-and-awe shots that found the net.
“He likes to transition quickly,” East coach Nathan Cline said. “We don’t count on it, but if we see it’s available, we hit it.”
The initial long-distance attack came at 33:53 in the first half, when Miguel Ferrer took that first bounce and snapped a shot before the BNL defense could react. Ethan Glick made it 2-0 in more conventional style, pushing a header home off a corner kick at 23:29. Meek struck again at 20:33, with Plummer beating the defense back for the airborne assault and scoring at 20:33.
“He had the wind at his back, it bounced one time into the box, and our defenders didn’t adjust,” BNL coach Reeve Arce said. “That really changed the beginning of the game.”
The fourth goal, falling into the “fool me twice” category, came from Ronan Maier, who controlled the bounce off another Meek bomb, dribbled past a defender and sidestepped diving BNL goalie Owen Williams for a put-away goal at 29:57 in the second half.
“We talk about two being the most dangerous lead in soccer,” Cline said. “Of course you’d rather be leading by two than one. And even though it was 3-0 at half, we talked a lot about not letting up in the second half.”
East (2-2-5 overall, 1-0-2 in the Hoosier Hills Conference) added goals from Jordan Hofelich (free kick at 21:30), Plummer (a right-wing run at 9:54) and Nicolas Moran (unassisted at 8:44).
BNL’s goal came midway through the second half, with freshman Barrett Holtz taking a Raiden Todd pass and shooting from inside 15 yards. Meek got his hands on it but couldn’t completely stop it as the ball trickled past and tickled the netting at 16:00.
The Stars had other quality chances in the first half, but Meek smothered rockets from Holtz and Todd.
”As a team, we had multiple chances,” Arce said. “If we finish our chances, maybe it’s a tie game or we’re leading in the first half. But in the second half, we were tired, and they did some of the same things.”
BNL fell to 2-7 overall (0-3 in the HHC) with seven consecutive losses.
“We keep telling them, it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish,” Arce said. “We’re a young team, so we keep telling them to keep improving. It doesn’t mean, if you lose a streak of games, you can’t come back and change it. The biggest thing is letting the ball do the work for them. We’re still trying to do the work ourselves.”
The Stars will visit Jennings County on Thursday.
