“The secret to scoring is just shooting the ball,” Tigers senior forward Josh Caffey stated simply.
And he should know.
Caffey and fellow senior forward Vincent Crepeau are the primary gunslingers for Belton (24-1), which will square off against North Mesquite (8-14-4) at 8 p.m. today in a Class 5A bi-district match at Midlothian ISD Stadium.
The high-powered Tigers - winners of 22 consecutive games and ranked No. 5 nationally in the ESPN RISE Fab 50 poll - have outscored opponents 115-20 and will face a Stallions squad that has posted only 36 goals while giving up 48.
But then again, North Mesquite doesn’t have Caffey and Crepeau in its arsenal. And though there is a gap in height between the two, the differences end there.
Caffey, a New Mexico signee, has notched 33 goals this season to run his career total to 100. Crepeau has 31 for the year, and both are looking to add to those numbers.
“There are certain things we do similarly,” Crepeau said. “Like running on to the ball, we both do that well because we’re both fast. We like to make those one-on-one runs against the keeper.”
Their coach agrees.
“On the field, they both understand each other and they’re both very competitive and driven,” Tigers coach Tarcisio Mosnia said. “They both have the same mentality of wanting to score.”
It all goes back to that statement about shooting.
“You have to have the mentality that you’re going to score every time you shot,” Crepeau said.
Added Caffey: “If you don’t think you can score every time, then there’s no reason to even take the shot.”
Though Caffey and Crepeau are on the front lines of the scoring war, Belton is hardly a two-man unit. And after bowing out of last year’s playoffs in the second round following two straight trips to the regional quarterfinals, it is the team’s cohesiveness that Mosnia credits with its success.
“They’re different kids with different characters but for some reason, they’re very close,” he said. “There’s great team unity. Some may be talkative or some other guy may be up to something but for some reason, they are very, very tight.
“Everybody understands what they’re supposed to do. We don’t have that bucking like we had last year where they were trying to figure out who was going to lead and who was going to do what. Now, they know their roles and accept them.”
It helps that a 115-goal regular season means that there’s plenty of scoring to go around. There have been 15 different goal scorers for Belton - even goalkeeper Manuel Amaya - and three players have recorded hat tricks to include Caffey, Crepeau and sophomore Tayron Martin.
“The teamwork has been better this year,” Caffey said. “We know where everybody’s going to be. It started showing at (The Woodlands tournament) because the preseason wasn’t very good.
“Then we kind of picked it up during that tournament and things started clicking. That’s when we started notice that we could be really good this year.”
And just how good do the Tigers think they are?
“We need to go to state,” Crepeau said.
To which Caffey added: “We’re ranked in the top four in the state. We’d better make it there.”
Note: The winner of tonight’s match will advance to this weekend’s area round to face the winner of the bi-district game between Dallas White (20-4) and Garland Rowlett (13-5-6).
