SPENCERVILLE – Botkins senior Zane Paul notched his 100th career goal on Thursday night at Memorial Field as Botkins kicked their way past host Spencerville 17-0 in a WOSL contest.
Paul’s 100th goal of his career came with 32:40 remaining in the opening half of play as he pushed the Trojans lead to 2-0 by burying a runner from the right side into the bottom left of the goal.
Justin Shuga opened the scoring for Botkins in the game as he connected on a blast from the top of the goal box that zipped past Spencerville keeper Dominic Adkins with just six minutes gone in the first half.
Botkins next two scores came from Paul who continued to add to his career mark at 24:53 and 24:20 before the break on a pair of balls past a charging Adkins to run the lead to 4-0 Trojans.
Sophomore John Smock kicked in the first of his three goals on the evening with 19:44 to break up the Paul scoring session for a 5-0 lead before Paul himself redirected a hard strike off of Adkins and into the goal for a 6-0 lead and his fourth and final goal of the game at 4:51.
Goals by Xavier Monnin and Adam Hall pushed the visiting Trojans lead to 8-0 at the halftime break.
Playing the second half without their leading scorer Will Gallaspie who was lost to injury in the first half the Bearcats were unable to muster any close shots and were forced to settle for long strikes from Joel Van Gorder that were caught by the Trojans keeper to keep the visitors slate clean.
Zack Ware’s first of two goals opened the second forty minutes at 36:38 and led to a run of four goals in five minutes of play when teammates John Smock (twice) and Xavier Monnin sent in scores to run the advantage to 12-0 with 30:31 remaining.
Utilizing spacing and speed throughout the evening the visitors made themselves right at home for the rest of the contest as markers by Ware, Luke Homan, Brendon Thompson, Devan Manger, and finally Carson Motter with 8:52 left broke the most goals scored by a Bearcat opponent with 17.
Previously the Bearcats biggest defeat was a 16-0 setback in 2012 against Ottoville.
Botkins has now won all 11 meetings against Spencerville and has outscored the Bearcats 88-3 and have not surrendered a goal in the series since a 3-2 victory in 2014.
State Semi-finalists a season ago, the Trojans (12-3-1) wrapped up the Western Ohio Soccer League this season with a perfect 7-0 mark and will begin their tournament run on October 19th as they host Stivers at 7:00 P.M.
Spencerville (8-4-2) starts their postseason trek on Wednesday evening October 21st at 5:00 P.M. at Memorial Field against Temple Christian.