Pillow Academy’s boys soccer squad moved to 3-0 on the season after defeating Columbus Christian School 6-1 at home Thursday night.
The home opener turned out to be the Logan Harvey Show, as the senior pumped in five of the team’s six goals.
“Columbus had no answer for Logan,” first-year head coach Serafin Simon said after the game. “Once he started rolling, I was not about to take him off the center forward position. He was on fire tonight.”
Harvey took a shot 23 minutes into the contest that was stopped by the Columbus Christian goalie, but center mid Colin Short was there to clean up the rebound and score to give the Mustangs a 1-0 lead.
Two minutes later, Harvey took a Jeffrey Bready pass and circled around a Columbus defender before beating the goalie to the right post, extending the lead to 2-0. Then with seven minutes left in the first half, Harvey took a beautiful centering pass from defender Walker Coleman and scored from 15 yards out, giving Pillow a 3-0 lead going into the break.
“I could tell Logan was in offensive mode, so I took him out of his normal center mid position and put him at forward the second half,” Simon said afterwards. “It paid off because he ended up scoring three more goals.”
Forward Brady McDaniel launched a pass that gave Harvey a breakaway, and he completed his hat trick at the 24-minute mark of the second half to give Pillow a 4-0 lead. Eight minutes later, Harvey juked around two defenders and beat the Columbus goalie for a 5-0 lead.
Harvey closed out the scoring with his fifth goal off a great feed for a breakaway from Short with 12 minutes left, giving Pillow a 6-0 lead.
Although Pillow outshot Columbus 16-5, senior goalkeeper Walt Pillow was unable to post his second consecutive shutout when Columbus scored its lone goal with seven minutes left. That goal finished the scoring.
The Mustangs, now 3-0 on the season, travel to play perennial academy powerhouse Jackson Academy on Monday. Simon knows that his squad has its work cut out for them, as the Raiders from Jackson outshot Pillow 39-4 in two games last year.
“I feel good how these kids are playing, especially my defensive line of Walker (Coleman), Leland (Simcox), Noah (Woodard) and Peyton (Turner). They will have to play their A-plus game Monday to give us a chance against JA,” Simon said.
