Roberts scores 50th career goal in leading Western Wayne to victory over Wyoming Area

VARDEN — With less than two weeks to go in the regular season, Western Wayne’s boys soccer team finds itself right in the thick of the fight for a district playoff spot.

The Wildcats added an important line to their 2024 resume Wednesday evening via an impressive 6-1 victory over Wyoming Area. With the win, coach Matt Fitzsimmons’ squad improved its overall record to 8-4-0 and climbed to sixth in the Class AA power rankings.

“We played a pretty complete game tonight,” the veteran skipper said. “Our offense was clicking, and our defense was flying all over the field. That’s a pretty good combination to have working for you.”

Timmy Roberts paced the Wildcats’ offensive assault, hammering home three goals including the 50 ^th of his varsity career.

“Getting my 50 ^th goal was super-exciting,” Roberts said. “It’s something I’ve been working toward since my very first practice back when I was a freshman.”

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Next up for Western Wayne is a home match against Forest City. The Foresters are 0-9-1 on the season and coming off a 5-0 loss at the hands of Holy Cross.

Action gets underway at 4:15 p.m. Friday on the turf at Sharkey Rosetti Memorial Field.

Milestone moment

Western Wayne wasted no time in firing up its high octane offense Wednesday at home versus Wyoming Area.

The Wildcats powered their way to a 4-0 halftime lead, then cruised to a 6-1 victory. Roberts opened the scoring 15 minutes in, celebrating his milestone moment with goal No. 50 courtesy of a Graysen Valinski assist.

“It was a great ball over the top from Graysen,” Roberts said. “When I got past the last defender everything kind of set in. I was determined to finish the job.”

And Roberts did just that. Skillfully eluding the Wyoming Area keeper, he calmly tucked the ball into the bottom right corner of the net and set off a celebration.

“I’m so happy for him,” Fitzsimmons said of his senior co-captain. “Timmy is a really good team leader. He’s improved so many aspects of his game, but especially his speed. He can break away from defenders now, which makes him even more dangerous.”

Roberts’ 50 ^th career goal was just the opening salvo of an explosive night. He would go on to add two more tallies to finish up with a hat trick.

Roberts has scored 22 goals and handed out seven assists this season. He now has 52 goals and 21 assists over the course of his four year varsity career.

“The countdown to 50 wasn’t really a distraction,” Roberts said. “If anything it motivated me to stay focused. At the start of the season, I wasn’t really even thinking about it.

“After a few games of scoring consistently I knew I had to be getting close. When I finally got it, the feeling of hearing all the cheers from the stands was awesome.”

Onward to victory

After the celebration of Roberts’ milestone moment died down, Western Wayne turned its focus to the task at hand.

The Wildcats continued peppering Wyoming Area’s net, eventually outshooting the visiting Warriors by a margin of 23-9.

Jacob Wells made the score 2-0 with an unassisted goal from point blank range at the 18:07 mark. Mikey Durso followed that up with an unassisted tally of his own six minutes later, increasing the Wildcat lead to 3-0.

Roberts notched his second goal of the night off a Joey Tickner assist, giving the home team a nearly insurmountable 4-0 lead at intermission.

Western Wayne kept the pedal to the metal early in the second half.

Roberts closed out his hat trick in the 48th minute, while Durso found the back of the net for the second time at the 65:29 mark. Wells assisted on each score. Durso now has 17 goals and seven assists for the season.

Defensively, the Wildcats turned in a stellar effort across the board. Keepers Aiden Forney and Gage Roberts combined for nine saves and turned away six corner kicks.

Western Wayne’s veteran back line of Jamie Chapman, Logan Pauler, Graysen Valinski and Robbie Carrelle earned high marks from Fitzsimmons.

“They have very good chemistry,” the veteran skipper said. “As a group, they’re extremely fast. There’s a ton of speed back there and they’re improving all the time.”

On the horizon

At 8-4-0, Western Wayne would be safely in the playoffs were the season to end today.

However, Fitzsimmons would love to see his Wildcats move up a bit in the power rankings, maybe even seal the deal on at least one home match.

“We are winning the games we should, but the kids need to step up a little bit,” he said. “I expect us to compete with all the teams left on our schedule.”

Following Friday’s battle with Forest City, the ‘Cats round out the regular season with matches against Mountain View (Oct. 7), West Scranton (Oct. 14) and Gregory the Great (Oct. 16).

Weather permitting, the District 2 Class AA tournament is scheduled to begin Wednesday, October 23.

This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Roberts scores 50th career goal in leading Western Wayne to victory over Wyoming Area