In the nightcap of the soccer district-opener with Hempstead, the Sealy Tiger soccer team erased a six-game losing streak and a five-game scoreless skid en route to a 5-0 win over the Bobcats to open play within District 20-4A.

Due to referee shuffling, some of Sealy’s Tuesday games were moved to Mondays and the Tigers earned their second district win earlier this week over Rice 7-1. Sealy will host Harmony School of Discovery as part of another four-game Friday night to close this week of play.

The Tigers got the scoreless monkey off their back early with two first-half goals, the first of which came when junior Amador Lopez converted a penalty-kick opportunity 12:48 into the contest.

“First goal was huge because it obviously relaxes everybody a little bit to know we got the first one but like I told them, ‘Once we get the first one, we can’t just be satisfied with that we gotta keep going,’” Head Coach Joshua Kirton said. “Like I’ve been preaching to them, we’ve been getting opportunities we just haven’t been able to finish them so after tonight, we finished five and could have finished more but hopefully, that can give us more confidence going forward.”

Junior William Forrester put home a throw-in from classmate Tanner Ellis with 9:29 remaining before halftime to give the hosts a lead, albeit by a dangerous margin.

“They were happy but I warned them not to get complacent because two-nothing is the most dangerous score line in soccer. The next goal is vitally important where if they score, they’re back in it. But if we score, we get even more of a cushion,” Kirton said. “They took heed to that message at halftime because we didn’t drop our level of play at all.”

Senior Ramiro Fuentes and juniors Rodolfo Olivarez and Jovanni Guerrero found the back of the net in the second half while senior goalkeeper Brayan Aviles opened his district season with a shutout behind a cohesive defensive unit.

“Brayan was solid as ever, I think he hardly touched the ball, maybe at the beginning when we were getting into it,” Kirton said. “The guys in front of him, gotta give credit to Oswaldo Rodriguez, Maximo Requema, Julius Aguilar and William Forrester, they did a heck of a job in front of him to make his job a little easier so he didn’t have to worry about bailing us out but again. Brayan is reliable and solid as ever; when he’s back there, I have no worries.”

Sealy is now halfway through a stretch of four consecutive home games – which closes against Columbus next Monday, Jan. 31 – and has already taken two steps toward the goal of defending their home field.

“The main thing that I told these guys is that we have a nice little four-game homestand so we’re going to protect our turf, this is our home,” the head coach said. “We’re comfortable here, this is where we practice but we’re looking to build the confidence up on the guys up front and the team overall to keep scoring goals when we get those opportunities and keep making sure we’re not taking the ball out of the back of our own net and protecting our turf. I told the guys we’re going to play six or seven games at home, and we want to win six or seven games at home.”

Although Kirton said he had been pleased with the team’s performance through the 0-5-1 start, after Sealy notched its first win of the season, he hoped that would only start the ball rolling.

“Nice to get it done and out of the way, obviously the way we started wasn’t pretty but the way we competed in these games and each game we’ve played I feel us getting better and better,” he said. “Some of the little things we struggled on earlier in the season we’re fixing them now. We’re not perfect but I feel like we’re progressing.”