Hounds sharp in regular season finale

FORT MADISON - Fort Madison’s 7-0 boys soccer win over Newton on Friday night had the Bloodhounds’ coaching staff wishing for an accelerated schedule.
The dominating victory at the Baxter Sports Complex concluded the regular season for the Bloodhounds (8-6-1), who don’t play again until the Class 3A Substate 6 semifinal at Mount Vernon on May 27.
It’s a long time to wait and work, especially for a team that’s playing its best soccer of the season.
“(Assistant coach Matt) Rump said about halfway through the second half, maybe three-quarters in, ‘Can we just play Mount Vernon tomorrow? Can we play them Monday?’” Fort Madison coach Kevin Wellman said.
The key over the next six practices, Wellman said, is to keep the Bloodhounds focused.
“As far as soccer goes, they’re probably going to hate me,” Wellman said, smiling. “I’m going to push them hard. They’ll have some days to rest in there. But we’ve got to be ready — Mount Vernon is going to come after us.”
The Bloodhounds have won three consecutive matches. This was their best week of the season, Wellman said — they defeated Southeast Conference champion Mount Pleasant 4-2 on Monday, then took control of this match early and never let up on the Cardinals (5-10-2).

“It was fantastic,” Wellman said. “We did all of the right things against Mount Pleasant, and we did all of the right things tonight.”
Connor Horn got the Bloodhounds going with two goals in the first 10 minutes of the match. Henry Graham scored with 16:22 left in the first half, then Jonah Santiago scored a minute later for a 4-0 lead. Jacob Shottenkirk’s goal with 8:09 left put the Bloodhounds up 5-0 at halftime.
“We didn’t necessarily talk about (a fast start),” Wellman said. “Sometimes we’ll challenge them, like tell them to get two goals in the first 10 minutes or something like that. Tonight we just talked about playing consistent, but we came out charging. It was our night.”
Fort Madison’s defense never let Newton get easy looks at the goal. That allowed Fort Madison to maintain its lead until the final 10 minutes of the match, when Horn and Tanner Williams scored to provide the final margin.
“We had really good movement through the middle third of the field,” Wellman said. “We would see the ball, turn, play the ball out wide, just doing the right things. We did everything right. It was a good Friday night.”
Now it’s about maximizing the time ahead, Wellman said.
“We know the drills we’re going to do, so we’ll roll the ball out and they won’t even think about it, they’ll just play,” Wellman said. “But our focus has to be on Mount Vernon all week, and that’s something we’ll keep talking about.”