Oostburg shuts out Howards Grove
Andrew Hildebrand
It may still be early in the year, but Oostburg has fired a couple warning shots across the bow of the Big East Conference.
The Flying Dutchmen shutout Howards Grove 5-0 to move to move to 4-0 on the year. What's more, Oostburg is yet to surrender a single goal, outscoring its opponents 33-0 to start the year.
Head coach Ryan Ten Pas said the fast start has been anything but a surprise.
"We're a very experienced and deep team," he said. "We have eight seniors. That's more seniors than I've ever had. For the first time ever, we really have some nice depth. We can go two deep at most positions, so that's really a nice luxury to have."
Defender Ben Lemkuil said the Flying Dutchmen defense is no joke.
"We're playing some really good ball right now," he said. "We're playing as a team and the underclassmen are really showing up. They're playing with a lot of confidence. We can definitely contend up there, so our standards are high. Our team goal is we don't want anything going in our goal. We're playing great defense right now, and we're definitely looking at playing in Milwaukee this year."
Christian Graves kicked off the scoring with two goals in the first half, and Derrick TenDolle added a couple more before the break to put the Flying Dutchmen up 4-0 before the break.
Ten Pas said the defense was the real start though, as has been the case all season long.
"Obviously, if we have four shutouts in a row, our defense is continuing to play well," he said. "We play defense as a team, so I don't want to single out any of the defenders. They're very proud of this shutout record and they should be."
While the defense has been the headliner, Ten Pas said the offense is doing work as well, and there's big things in store for that side of the field, as well.
"We need to be patient on offense for sure," he said. "They just packed the box tonight. We were trying to get the ball into the middle two quickly. That's what we talked about at halftime. We just need to be patient and those goals will come."