BURTON—Cardinal got off to a slow start and never really hit the high gear head coach Mike Topalian hoped to see but the Huskies earned a 4-1 win at rival Berkshire in Friday Night Futbol.
“I thought we came out OK,” Topalian said. “We played well through the first third and then we went a little flat going toward halftime. I thought they brought it back together and the seniors stepped it up and kind of took control early in the second half, which was good.”
Todd Wright scored the first Cardinal goal of the season and Jake Revak finished off the next three, but the Huskies and Badgers both had several other scoring chances.
“Both teams missed some opportunities,” Topalian said. “Some or our guys had some shots they probably should have knocked in.”
Wright’s goal came with 29:32 left in the first half.
Nathan Dhayer perfectly laid an inbounds pass 10 feet in front of the goal and Wright used his head to finish off the set play.
“I just had a bunch of energy,” Wright said. “We were practicing that for a while. I got my head on it and lobbed it over.”
Revak’s first goal came seven minutes later when he cleared three Berkshire defenders and beat the keeper to the left corner.
Berkshire’s Jacob Hanson temporarily halted the Huskies’ momentum when he found the back of the net with 13:31 left in the half.
Dhayer collected his second assist of the game when he fed Revak to make it 3-1 eight minutes into the second half.
Revak closed out the scoring with 5:39 remaining in the game.
“After the first one I felt really great,” Revak said. “Those couple of misses felt bad at the moment, but you’ve just got to put them behind you and keep going. I tried to do that.”
The Huskies put their 1-0 record on the line at Cuyahoga Heights on Tuesday.
“We had no idea really what we were about and we still don’t,” Topalian said. “Berkshire played really hard. This is a tough place to come in on Friday Night Futbol, but it was a great experience for both teams.”
