Cascadia 8 : 1 Darfur
Attendance: 152
(Cascadia Scorers: Haddadi 9, 23, 65; Blanchard 39; Menzies 45; Bjork 47, 72, 81)
(Darfur Scorer: Abdulkhalik 68)
Cascadia recorded a convincing win in their first ever home game defeating Darfur 8-1 at French Field in Kent, WA. Hamza Haddadi and Tyler Bjork scored hat tricks, the latter all in the second half.
The game was not really in doubt after a one sided first half.
Two goals from Haddadi, plus one each from Beau Blanchard and Scott Menzies gave them a 4-0 halftime lead. They doubled that tally in the second half to finish with eight, but could not keep a clean sheet in a convincing win for the second game running.
The game started brightly for Darfur with them creating early pressure. Cascadia keeper Dorian Lair making his Cascadia debut kept them out and the home side soon took control of the game.
Nine minutes in, Haddadi opened the scoring for the Dougs. Cascadia assumed control thereafter putting on the bulk of the pressure for the duration of the first period. Having had a second goal ruled out for offside and also hitting the woodwork, more goals looked likely.
Blanchard completed that task in the 23rd minute. Haddadi converted a penalty kick for the third 16 minutes later, but Darfur were not without their offensive threat, and it took an interception by veteran skipper James Riley to preserve the three goal advantage.
That proved to be vital as, in added time, Scott Menzies tapped in a fourth.
Cascadia started right where they left off after the interval. It only took two minutes in the second half before substitute Bjork scored his first.
Dorian Lair was called into action early
Hadaddi scored his third converting another penalty to take it to 6-0 before Bjork struck again to score two further goals and become Cascadia’s second hat trick hero of the night.
After that Haddadi penalty however, came Darfur’s moment of the night when Khalid Abdulkhalik reacted first to a corner and headed in their consolation goal, to pull it back to 6-1.
Bjork however took control thereafter and put a gloss on the scoreline in Cascadia’s first ever home game.
The sides are due to meet again in California next summer.
Cascadia: 1 Dorian Lair; 2 Tanner Williams, 3 Noah Cavanaugh, 6 Duncan McCormick, 7 James Riley (c), 8 Angelo Calfo, 9 Hamza Haddadi, 10 Beau Blanchard, 11 Quinn Fahling, 14 Scott Menzies, 18 Zane Provenzano
Substitutes: 12 Tyler Bjork, 19 Jay Weinmann
