Ballard pummels Portland in 7-0 victory as proven performers continue hot streak
By Charles Hamaker
Interbay, WA – Ballard FC continued their undefeated start to their second season in franchise history, pushing aside PDX FC with a brutal seven goal defeat while recording their third clean sheet of the season. Despite PDX attempting to get some dangerous balls past the Ballard backline early, Christian Engmann and the home side negated any sort of pressure and instead sent it up to their talented attackers. Peter Kingston's goal in the 22nd minute, slicing and dicing through the PDX defense, got the party started as seven different Ballard players found the back of the net to truly display the depth of the club. With the attack seemingly firing on all cylinders and the defensive unit holding down the fort in front of goalkeeper Lars Helleren, the Ballard boys have USL League two on alert.
The Ballard FC starting XI ahead of their 7-0 beatdown of PDX FC (Photo by Mathew Bermudez)
Proven performers show out
Ballard put on a display of offensive luxury, as seven different players scored on PDX but notably three proven performers for the club this season helped to continue the domination over their Portland opponent. Forward Alex Mejia, last years leading goal scorer for Ballard, is on a hot streak of late and continued that tonight with a goal and assist to help further his teams lead. El Tigre has fought his way back into the starting XI and will stay there given his recent run of form until something changes. Stas Korzeniowski, who we tried to warn you about before the regular season began, continues to display strong play and while he didn’t have a brace as he has in previous matches, the forward continues to look dangerous on the ball as he displays blazing speed and a soft touch that are a scary combination to give a tall and talented forward. The third of the trio would be Peter Kingston, another returning player who showed out in preseason and hasn’t stopped since. Kingston was our man of the match, recording a goal and two assists to finish out a quality performance, as we picked him as our key player to watch. As mentioned, seven different players scored in the win, but that trio lead the way for Ballard in the pounding of PDX.
The trio of Alex Mejia, Peter Kingston, and Stas Korzeniowski brought havoc for Ballard against Portland (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Clinical clean sheet
While lots of attention has been paid to the backline of Ballard lately and with good reason (Christian Engmann was named one of the most likely to go pro in all of USL League Two), goalkeeper Lars Helleren had an excellent game when called upon and made big saves late in the match to keep PDX FC off the board. Helleren wasn’t called upon often necessarily to make the big stop, as his backline comprised of Khai Brisco, Leo Burney, Christian Engmann, and captain Lesia Thetsane kept things clean. But, when needed and when PDX finally was able to break through the defensive unit for a chance, Helleren said an emphatic NO each time to keep the clean sheet and make the victory for Ballard even more dominant.
Ballard FC second-year goalkeeper Lars Helleren made stops when the club needed him to (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Rolling through the early part of the regular season
As somewhat expected, Ballard is rolling along through the early part of the regular season with great success. Considering that this team did in fact get deeper after last years success, and brought back numerous key players, it’s exactly as head coach Jason Farrell said at media day. This is a deeper and better team than last year, and they’re still arguably finding their groove together as there really wasn’t much of a preseason or buildup into the season compared to what we see with other leagues and sports. Ballard has the perfect sort of trio to succeed in soccer: scary attack, strong defense, and stout goalkeeping. You’ll notice that I didn’t specifically point out one keeper, and that’s on purpose as the club has four quality keepers on the roster that could all essentially swap in. That’s another position group that got better as compared to last year, and is a small window into how good the club is right now.
The rest of the sights and scenes from the Ballard FC victory over PDX FC on Friday, June 2nd (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
What’s next?
Ballard will remain at Interbay stadium for their next match of the season, looking to keep the good vibes rolling as Oly Town FC travels North for the two clubs second battle of the season. Oly Town hosted Ballard FC in the first match of the regular season, as the latter were rude guests in that they dropped a four-goal shutout against the Olympia based club. With the way that Ballard has been pushing along as of late, especially having the trio of Mejia-Kingston-Korzeniowski clicking on the attack, it’ll be tough to beat the club that calls Interbay home. For Oly Town, Ballard is the only blemish on the clubs record so far, having won the other two of three total matches this season, so the Olympia based group is hoping that they’re able to pull off an upset when the Friday, June 9th match with a kickoff of 7PM PST rolls around.