By ALEX SPONSELLER The Cranston West boys soccer team shut out Mt. Pleasant 3-0 on Monday evening to improve to 1-1 on the season.

The two clubs were scoreless heading into the second half, but the Falcons offense would take off for three straight goals to grab the victory. Nicholas DeFazio, Michael Iuguesi and Michael Paquette scored goals for West. Jordan Thibodeau added two assists while Brandon Iuguesi recorded another. Keeper Matt Cataldi made nine saves in net.

West coach Ethan Lincoln was happy with his team’s response after dropping the opener and hopes that it will give it confidence looking ahead.

“It was really big just because of the fact that we played pretty well and did everything right the first game but just couldn’t find the back of the net. This helps them and will now give them confidence in doing things. We had a similar start to last season, came out hot playing good soccer but we didn't get the results we wanted and lost some confidence midway through the season,” said Lincoln, who also credited Cataldi for a strong performance. “Matt has been big for us. This is his second year in goal for us and he’s been a big part of our success.”

Lincoln has also been pleased with the team’s versatility and depth, as well as the mix between veterans and youngsters.

“We have five seniors as our starting core, but we have a lot of youth that played minutes last year as well. We have a pretty good mixture of young and old,” said Lincoln. “We don’t really have one player that we will be relying on too heavily, I think we will have a dynamic group of forwards, we have pretty good depth in each position as well. We will have to rely on many people because it is a wacky season and it is shortened. We have plenty of people that we can kick around and move whenever we need to.”

Moving forward, the Falcons hope to make the postseason and compete for a title. However, they are simply happy to be back on the field and Lincoln is excited to give these kids a season to remember.

“We didn’t set too many goals since this is such a weird year. The high school season is a great way to prepare you for anything that you plan on doing in life. We just want to teach them good soccer and they will be able to use that moving forward,” said Lincoln. “If we get good results as well, even better.”