East Bladen Boys Soccer Rolls Past North Duplin 5-1

Austin Smith
Sep 16
2 min read

MT. OLIVE, NC — East Bladen put together one of its most complete performances of the season Thursday night, defeating North Duplin 5-1 on the road.

The win pushes the Eagles to 4-3-3 overall, and they’ve now won four of their last six outings while holding an unbeaten 1-0-1 record in conference play.

The tone of the match was set almost immediately. Just two minutes in, Jayce Hatcher finished a pass from Ishaq Algozy to give the Eagles a 1-0 advantage.

That early strike opened the floodgates.

Fifteen minutes later, Ishaq stunned the home crowd with a 40–yard bomb into the top left corner, assisted by Miguel Ventura.

The senior midfielder wasn’t done. Just before halftime, he bent a free kick from 30 yards out into the same corner to make it 3-0 at the break.

East Bladen stayed on the front foot coming out of halftime.

In the 55th minute, Hatcher tallied his second goal of the night, this time off a long throw-in from Debo Lewis.

Ishaq later capped the scoring in the 73rd minute, pouncing on his own rebound inside the box to seal the 5-1 victory.

Head Coach Jay Raynor praised both the execution and the energy of his squad.

“Great team win. We are getting better… that’s with our play and understanding what we need from every player,” Raynor said. “The energy over the last few weeks has been amazing. Everyone is positive and pushing each other. I’m blessed to coach some really amazing kids.”

Raynor noted that the training ground preparation showed up. “We have trained some specific things as of recently and we executed those things perfectly last night. The guys did all that was asked of them,” he explained. “Being able to flip the field and keep the pressure on them from the first whistle established the tone for the match. That’s the East Bladen way.”

North Duplin battled back in the second half and eventually converted a penalty to avoid the shutout, but Raynor said the Eagles’ fast start made the difference.

“Scoring early and keeping the pressure on them for the duration of the first half put North Duplin into some tough situations. We forced them into mistakes. We didn’t let them have much room to think or breathe.”

Still, the coach acknowledged that his squad is dealing with injuries and limited depth.

That reality showed in the later stages.

“Inside of 20 minutes I thought the game got funky… fatigue set in. It’s physical and mental. Having to rely on guys to play 80 minutes is just what the situation is right now. Hopefully we’ll be getting some guys back over the next few weeks,” Raynor said.

Despite those challenges, he left Mt. Olive proud.