Strong second half seals Westlake win

It was a tale of two halves at Westlake for the Great Lakes Conference showdown between the North Olmsted Eagles and Westlake Demons. In the end, Westlake defeated North Olmsted, 2-1.

Westlake improves to 6-0 on the season and North Olmsted drops their second straight match and fall to 6-2 on the season. The Eagles lost a hard fought match to Avon 2-0 on Monday.

In the first half, North Olmsted’s Owen Reyes found the back of the net and the Eagles controlled the possession and took a 1-0 lead into halftime.

In the second half, Westlake’s senior captain Basheer Alramahi found the back of the net twice and the Demons held on for a 2-1 win.

“We knew we could compete with this team and beat them,” Alramahi said. “I just had to put it in my mind to get a few in the net and work as a team. Jimmy (Laux) had a great ball in on the second one and Drew (Arkwright) had a great one in on the first one. We just all clicked.”

“They aren’t going to back down from a challenge,” Westlake coach Doug Kuns said about the Demons. “We set our goal at the beginning of the season being in a new conference that we wanted to win the conference.

“Credit to North Olmsted they are a good squad and they came out and took it to us in the first half,” Kuns said.

Kuns added “we regrouped at halftime and talked about what we wanted to change.”

Westlake was close to the scoring a couple times late in the first half and that gave them the confidence they could get it done in the second half.

“Seeing that we were able to get those chances meant that we could keep getting them and we just had to put that in our minds that we could finish them,” Alramahi said.

“Basically stringing some passes together,” Kuns said about second half changes. “They were putting so much pressure on us that we were losing the midfield. A lot of deep balls out of the back and skipping the midfield.”

Kuns added “all three phases of our team is strong and we are better when all three phases work as one.”

For North Olmsted, turning the first 40 minutes into 80 is the key for them moving forward.

“We didn’t get the job done,” North Olmsted coach Chris Marsh said. “Plain and simple. We have 20 seniors on this team and in crunch time we are supposed to get the job done and some misplays and miscues and they jumped all over them.

“In games that are going to be close we have handed goals to the other team,” Marsh said. “And you can’t do that in games that it is going to be a 1-0 or 2-1 game.”

This game had a little bit of everything, even a 25 minute delay with eight minutes left in the game when the lights went off on the field.

“I wish we would have played with the same intensity the last eight minutes the entire second half because I have no doubt if we did that we would have won 1-0,” Marsh said.

“We have to get better in that department and if we do, we are going to be really tough to beat no matter who we play,” Marsh added.

For Westlake, this was the first goal they have allowed all season during this incredible start.

“It really is a great challenge for the team and when we are able to get a win like this, it is just even better for the team,” Alramahi said.

Westlake was able to keep North Olmsted star Ryan Sanborn off the scoreboard in this one as well.

“We had a game plan going in and obviously the biggest thing was communicating in the back and making sure that we knew where (Sanborn) was at all times,” Kuns said.

As the Demons move into the heart of their schedule, every game will get a little more important.

“We got some tough games coming up and we can’t take any game lightly,” Kuns added.