Bethlehem Catholic’s boys soccer team hosted East Stroudsburg North under clear, sunny skies on Sept. 4, but it was raining goals as the Golden Hawks shut out the Timberwolves, 11-0.
Becahi forward Ethan Wiles scored a record-setting double hat trick in the victory.
“I came into this game knowing this was the game I really wanted to break that record, and I really wanted those six goals,” Wiles said. “It got late in the game, those last 10, 15 minutes, and I just kept going. I couldn’t get a finish off, and then my friend, my teammate Micah (Lawson), he gave me a beautiful goal, and I was able to finish it off, and it was awesome.”
Lawson got the scoring going for the Golden Hawks in the fourth minute of play, and Becahi forward Christian Hawach found the back of the net 10 minutes later.
“We were running a 3-4-3, and we had two wingers in the offense, and we weren’t fluent with it yet, so we switched to something we were more familiar with, a 3-2-3-2, and we feel like it’s much better because DMs drop back, and the attackers have more power, more force with that,” Hawach said.
Becahi defender Gabriel Santamaria took charge of the back line, marking North forward Ibrahim Bebeji.
“They had a very strong striker. Their number nine was probably their biggest threat, so I normally take charge of their better players to have a little challenge myself,” Santamaria said. “If I’ve locked onto him a little bit, I know he’s gonna know I’m there, and then as soon as we started going up, I said why not give a chance to some of our younger players to step on the varsity field and see what it’s like to have some challenges of their own.”
Wiles came up with back-to-back goals midway through the first half, and Lawson, Wiles, and Peter Tocci added three more goals before time expired for a 7-0 Becahi lead.
“We worked hard in the attack, and we presented ourselves with better opportunities than we’ve had in past weeks because of our ability to find pockets and find space,” Wiles said.
Wiles opened up the second-half scoring with goals in the 57th and 65th minutes, but had to wait for the double hat trick for what seemed like an eternity for the Becahi senior, and with little time left, Wiles did indeed find the back of the net for the sixth time.
Then, in the 77th minute, Santamaria took an assist from Nathaniel Yoder for the Hawks’ final goal.
“Of course, I like to score. I saw this game as an opportunity, and now that I saw [Wiles] had a few of his own, I say, hey...let’s give everyone a few of their own,” Santamaria said. “I’ve played center mid for him, I played with him for club, we’ve been playing together all year for two years now, and so I’ve always been his guy to give him his goals. In club, I’m his top assister, here at school I’m always his assister, and then I switched to center back this year because I felt we needed more help on defense.”
Becahi goalkeeper Evan Schultz made 6 saves, and Liam Imhoff had 9 saves for East Stroudsburg North.
“We have a big week coming up,” said Hawach. “We have ND, Liberty, and we’re gonna practice this formation a bit more, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get it down and be able to win those big games.”
Becahi will host Liberty on Sept. 13 at 3:30 p.m.