Demon faithful couldn’t have asked for a better start to the soccer playoffs with the Washington boys and girls moving on to the second round.
The boys made a trip to Baxter Sports Complex in Fort Madison on Thursday for a third duel against Keokuk and the playoff meeting ended the same as the other two with a 10-0 mercy rule Demon win. The offense went to work early by building an 8-0 halftime advantage thanks to a pair of goals from Cole Anderson, DaShaun Westphal-Edwards, and David Sevilla with single tallies coming from Joshua Perez and Fabian DeJesus. Anderson and Sevilla capped off hat tricks in the second half with the game ending in the 64th minute. Manny Raymundo and Brayan Arreola had two assists while Will Gilchrist-Brock managed three saves at the other end.
Westphal-Edwards described his first goal that was headed in off of a beautiful corner kick from Raymundo. “Manny was at the corner and I lined up at the top of the box with no one marking me up. I was in the right place at the right time and headed the ball in. Tonight was satisfying because last game it took us awhile to score, but we were moving quickly in this one and punching the goals in fast.” Washington moves to 12-4 and will head right back to Fort Madison on Monday to face the Bloodhounds (13-5). Fort Madison rolled Mount Pleasant 8-0 last night and the Demons will seek revenge after dropping a pair of close regular season meetings by 3-1 and 3-2 scores.
On Wednesday the Demon girls traveled to Donnellson for a class 1A quarterfinal against Central Lee (10-5) and Washington utilized a 2-1 halftime advantage to hang on for a 3-2 victory. Giselle Marcelino scored twice with Greta Rothe adding one. The dynamic duo are now up to 25 and 23 goals, respectively on the season. Audrey Anderson assisted on one of the tallies and Elyse Hunt had six saves. They improve to 10-6 and advance to Tuesday’s semifinal at Solon (15-3). The No. 9 ranked Spartans got past Mid-Prairie 2-0 in the first round.
It was a long time coming in the postseason for both teams with the girls picking up their first playoff win since 2014 and the boys since 2018.