Spread the wealth.

That’s what veteran Lehighton boys soccer coach Dave Yob wants to see offensively from his suddenly maturing and rising team.

When the Indians hosted a youthful Tamaqua team on Wednesday afternoon in a Schuylkill Division I meeting, it was easy to see that the cream was at the top for the Indians as they posted an impressive 6-1 victory.

Even Tamaqua’s coach Jim Fisher readily understands the difference between the Blue Raiders and the Indians is substantial at this point.

“They’re a quality veteran team, and Dave Yob has done a great job of coaching them,” Fisher said. “Their experience made a big difference. We had nine starters, and 11 players overall, graduate. So we are very inexperienced this season.”

The Indians came out of the gate smoking, and less than seven minutes elapsed when they got an unassisted goal from junior forward Mason Marchessault.

Exactly eight minutes later, Lehighton scored its second goal at the 25:13 mark. This time senior Tyler Rehrig scored off an assist from teammate AJ Light.

The first-half scoring kept coming for Lehighton as junior Nick Zeigenfuss added a goal with 24:00 remaining in the half thanks to another assist from Light.

The Indians closed out the first half strong when Light beat the Raiders defense for a score with 2:56 showing on the clock. That goal was also unassisted, and made it 4-0 at the break.

“That’s exactly the way we like it,” Yob said about his team’s balanced goal production, which saw four different players score in the opening half, and five different players get goals in the game. “We want to spread the scoring out.”

Yob said the biggest difference with this year’s team is its experience.

“All season we’ve been playing hard, not backing down from people,” Yob said. “The big thing is, they’re grown up. For the last two years, they were freshmen and sophomores for the most part … now they’re juniors and seniors and have grown into being men, and now they’re not backing down.”

The Indians came up with a penalty kick for the fifth goal of the game. This time, Light rammed a shot through the back of the net from the penalty spot with 18:40 remaining. Two minutes later, the Indians would drive home their final score as Matt Sofranko was in the right place at the right time to knock in a rebound goal.

Tamaqua hit the scoring column with 1:15 to play thanks to Jacob Schlier, who scored off a penalty kick in front of the goal.

“As a team, we played much better in the second half,” Fisher said. “We need to come ready to play from the start. That’s a problem for us right now.”

BY THE NUMBERS

… The Indians outshot the Tams 15-6. Winning goalkeeper Bryce Miller had five saves. Tamaqua had more corners 9-7.

USING HIS BENCH

… Lehighton freely substituted from late in the first half and throughout the entire second half. Tamaqua was much more competitive in the second half against Lehighton’s reserves, as both teams had five shots on goal and the Indians goal advantage was just 2-1.