Fort Madison ends Keokuk's trip at halftime

FORT MADISON - Kevin Wellman was OK with his team only playing a half.
Fort Madison’s boys soccer team started a stretch of five matches in six days with a 14-0 win over Keokuk on Monday night at the Baxter Sports Complex.
The game was called at halftime by the 10-goal mercy rule, and given what the Bloodhounds have to face this week, getting to go home early was just fine with their coach.
“It’s a long week,” Wellman said. “I was able to get my reserves in to get some playing times, give some of the starters some rest.”
Fort Madison plays at Notre Dame-West Burlington on Tuesday, hosts Burlington on Thursday, then has home matches with Davenport North and Mediapolis on Saturday.
Wellman has plenty of goals for the week.
“Knock on wood,” Wellman said, jokingly hitting his head, “we don’t have any injuries, because with that many games fatigue can get to you and that’s when injuries can happen. And we need to get the ball from the middle third to the attacking third in a controlled manner, so we can get close to the goal.”

The Bloodhounds (2-0-1 overall, 2-0 Southeast Conference) had no trouble with the Chiefs (0-5, 0-2), building a 4-0 lead in the first 10 minutes. Jonah Santiago scored 98 seconds into the match, then Jonah Tackett scored 13 seconds later. Connor Horn then scored twice in the span of 3 ½ minutes.
Hunter Wiegand scored to make it 5-0, then Jack Ragar and Clay Smith scored less than a minute apart.
Daniel Jenkins then began his four-goal night with back-to-back goals in less than a minute, followed by a second goal from Ragar that made the score 10-0 and started the running clock with 12:58 to play.
Smith scored his second goal with 10:03 to play, then Jenkins had back-to-back goals again. Joseph Lestina scored with 2:20 remaining for the final goal of the night.
“(Our passing) could have been better,” Wellman said. “The first five minutes, we were just bringing the ball down the middle of the field, and that doesn’t always work. I was hollering at them to get the ball wide, and eventually we started doing that, but it took too long for that. You’ve got to get the ball wide, spread the defense out.”
Fort Madison has had a solid start to the season, opening with a tie against Williamsburg before defeating Washington 2-1 last Thursday.
“Our first two scrimmages, and then our opener against Williamsburg, we learned our strength is in our midfield,” Wellman said. “We’ve got pretty good possession there, but we’ve been struggling getting the ball into our attacking third, and that’s what we’ve been working on, trying to get that ball to the attacking third where we can get a good look.
“The chemistry is good — we’ve got each other’s backs. We’re doing some of the little things really, really well, and I’m happy with that. It’s fun to be at practice and at games with these guys.”