The newly painted Bishop stadium saw its first soccer match of the year on August 28 when the new and improved Manhattan Indians were victorious in their season debut against Lawrence High by a score of 4-0.

Within a few minutes of the starting whistle, senior forward Kirkland Lambert kicked off the season, literally, scoring the opening goal after a defensive error by Lawrence High just six minutes into the game. Lawrence failed to recover and junior Julian Pereyda extended Manhattan’s lead to two before the end of the first half.

“My goal wasn’t all that special, but a goal is a goal and it helped us win the game,” Pereyda said.

The Indians kept their 4-4-2 formation throughout the game and into the second half when senior Gardner Blanck scored nine minutes after the start of the second half. Senior forward Austin French declared the game over when he capitalized on yet another defensive error and gave the Indians their fourth and final goal of their season debut.

“It was pretty opportunistic, most of the time those goals don’t happen but you know, right place right time,” French said, who leads this year’s class of 13 seniors in what is a 23-man Varsity squad. “They brought a lot of intensity to the table and it was a really good first game for us.”

MHS outshot Lawrence 10-1 in the year’s first contest.

As for Lawrence, they start off the year with a 4-0 loss in an away game.

“They showed their inexperience, they had a lot of new players and you could tell especially when we pressured them up the front.” head coach Frank Alonso said. “I think it’s a team that’s only going to get better; I think we caught them a good time starting the year. They were just a little inexperienced. They’ve got good players. At the varsity level the support can be as old as you can and as much experience as you can [have], so I think that’s a team that will get better and better.”

Alonso continues his chase for his first state title in this new season.

“I think we’ll play a lot better, we looked rusty, we had a couple of days we couldn’t practice this week so we looked a little disjointed, but we’ll get better,” Alonso said

For Manhattan’s next game, they will travel to Wichita Northwest where they will compete in the Titan Classic, something MHS has never won before.

“I have a good feeling about (Wichita Northwest), so we’ll make a deep run this year,” French said.

MHS travels to Wichita on Monday, September 7 to take part in the Titan Classic.