LACEY — Rayan Moustafa may only be a freshman, but he set the bar pretty high for the best individual performance he’ll ever have on the pitch in his prep career.
Moustafa netted a career-best four goals as North Thurston pounded River Ridge 8-0 Thursday night at South Sound Stadium. He already had a hat trick by halftime, including going 2 for 2 on penalty kicks.
“It means a lot to me. I’m scoring for my family and scoring for my team,” Moustafa said. “I was connecting with my midfielders, playing out wide and then getting in the middle.”
Thursday’s win marked the most goals in a game by North Thurston since it scored nine against Yelm on April 25, 2023. Five different players scored a goal for the Rams, and when they scored, they scored in bunches.
Sophomore Tate Vetas took a perfect pass from senior Eli Taylor and scored the first goal of the game on a right-footer past the diving River Ridge keeper Braxton Martinez in the fifth minute.
In the 16th minute, Moustafa blitzed the Hawks with two goals within seconds of each other. He notched his first on a penalty kick, and after the Rams stole the ball on the ensuing kickoff, Vetas dished to Moustafa, who attacked the right side of the net and pushed it past Martinez for the third goal in just 16 minutes.
River Ridge struggled to keep the ball in bounds and to connect on passes along the sidelines throughout the first half. North Thurston’s aggressive on-ball defenders consistently jumped in front of passes and created open looks in transition. On a corner kick by Leonardo Cortez in the 36th minute, Balde Irakoze leaped and punched the ball into the back of the net off a header. Just three minutes later, Moustafa earned another penalty kick and converted to give North Thurston a 5-0 halftime lead. In 40 minutes, the Rams had already tied their season high for goals in a game.
The offensive trend started in Tuesday’s 4-1 win over Peninsula and followed a three-game scoreless streak against Silas, Capital and Timberline.
“Last week and the previous week, we were struggling to score goals. It wasn’t for a lack of creating opportunities or chances, but we just weren’t able to put the finishing touches on a lot of plays that we had made,” North Thurston coach Tristan Glazer said. “I think they’ve now found their confidence and found their goal-scoring touch.”
That touch didn’t wear off in the second half, as Eli Taylor netted a goal in the 59th minute followed by another from Michael Cook two minutes later, both assisted by Harol Ramirez. Moustafa enacted the mercy rule in the 74th minute with his fourth goal of the night.
“We’re super proud of the boys. It was a good effort today,” Glazer said.
River Ridge couldn’t maintain its newfound momentum created in Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to Capital, a contest that head coach Daniel Arevalo thought flashed the makings of a new team and showed positive growth in terms of pushing through adversity. But, he said, Thursday’s game was a step in the wrong direction in that regard.
“I told the boys that we’re going to go through these growing pains, and it’s about not getting stuck when things go wrong and knowing that we can get through it,” Arevalo said. “We just have to focus on what we can control and not focus on the bad thing that just happened five seconds ago. I think everyone was coming into this game with high hopes because we proved to ourselves that we could play against a very good team. I think the shell shock of the first 20 minutes rattled us.”
North Thurston (5-2-4, 2-1-1 Puget Sound League) will look to continue its offensive momentum at home against Lakes (2-6-0, 1-3-0 Puget Sound League) Monday, April 13, while River Ridge (0-9-1, 0-4-0 Puget Sound League) gets another tough test in Timberline (4-4-2, 2-1-1 Puget Sound League) Tuesday, April 14 at South Sound Stadium.
