By: Chris Long

Led by a hat trick from Tervor Berk the Heritage Mens’ Varsity Soccer team (7-0) breezed to a 6-2 win over Corinth Holders (6-3) Wednesday night to wrap up a perfect 7-0 non-conference schedule.

While the contest was tight early Coach Sloan sighted a slow start for the reason why his team didn’t open the scoring until 24 minutes in. “I thought we started a little flat,” said Sloan, “but it’s hard because we’ve played a lot of soccer lately.” He was quick to add that that’s “not an excuse” and he says his team “needs to start better” especially against stronger teams that the Huskies will face once the conference season begins.

When the Huskies finally got rolling, there was nothing stopping them. With just over 16 minutes remaining in the half, Trevor Berk recovered a bounce off of a previous shot and buried it putting the Huskies on the board first. Less than 4 minutes later Caleb Bratager had a ball come his way in the box and he connected. Corinth Holders responded by scoring a goal just 1:25 after Bratager’s goal, but then 4 short minutes later Santiago Romero joined the Heritage scoring party by way of a great feed from Bratager to restore the Heritage lead to 3.

The second half got off to a quick start with Trevor Berk’s goal 36 seconds in, his second goal of the night. He scored a third goal to complete the hat trick about 12 minutes later. Caleb Bratager scored again about 6 minutes after that to give the Huskies the 6-1 lead. Corinth Holders got a second goal from Dalton Forrest with 18 minutes remaining but it was too little too late for the Pirates and the Huskies held on for the 6-2 win.

The win wraps up non-conference play for the Huskies and while Coach Sloan was very happy with the team’s performance in the early matchups, he was quick to point out that now the records have been wiped clean and it is basically the start of a new season. “As far as I’m concerned the last 3 weeks mean nothing now,” says Sloan, “we’re back to zero wins and zero loses because it all counts now.”

In order to start the conference season out on the right foot Sloan said that he wanted to see an improvement in the composure of his team. “Just making sure not to panic,” he said, “believe it or not were still a young team so it will be interesting to watch now that it’s for real.”

The Huskies begin conference play on the road at Leesville Road on Monday, and their conference home opener will be next Wednesday when the Huskies host Sanderson.