OLYMPIA, Wash. – JT Meyer’s goal in the third minute gave the Oly Town Artesians a lead that they would not relinquish en route to a 5-0 victory over the Spokane Shadow on sunny Sunday afternoon at The Evergreen State College. Goalkeeper JJ Olson recorded his second straight clean sheet and Surf Wodajo scored two goals and added an assist to move the Artesians to 2-1-1 in Evergreen Premier League play.
The Artesians wasted no time in jumping on the young Shadow (0-4-0, 0 points) squad. Gabrielle Zaccagnini made a fantastic pass across the box to a streaking Meyer who slotted a shot past goalkeeper Logan Coddington to put Oly up 1-0 just two and half minutes into the game. It was Meyer’s second goal of the season and his first since scoring the Artesian’s first goal of the season against Yakima on April 30th.
Early pressure could have resulted in a handful of more goals for the Artesians in the early going, but the Shadow and Coddington rallied and kept Oly Town off of the board for the rest of the half. Shadow forward Cameron Weller had some nice opportunities as Spokane found some success kicking up the aggression late in the half, but Olson easily made five saves and the Artesians took a 1-0 lead into the break.
15 minutes into the second half, Surf Wodajo sent a long ball to Tanner Allison across the field, who got behind the defender, made a nifty move to beat the goalkeeper and scored his first goal of the season and made it 2-0 in the 60th minute. From there, it was all Artesians. Wodajo scored his first goal in the 80th minute on a long outlet from the keeper Olson and then scored just two minutes later on a pass from Alex Young to make it 4-0 in the 82nd minute. Daniele Zaccagnini got on the scorecard late with a close range goal on another pass by Young, and the game came to an end with Oly Town taking their second win of the season, 5-0.
The Artesians and the EPLWA now take a week off for Memorial Day and will return to action with a Friday/Saturday doubleheader at home on June 2nd and 3rd. On Friday the 2nd, the Artesians will host Washington Premier South Sound FC at 7:00 PM and on Saturday the 3rd, the Olympic Force will be in town at 4:00 PM. Both games will be played at Wembley Soccer Shop Field at The Evergreen State College.