By Roger Gordon

Correspondent

After losing its first eight games of the season, Southeast has come out of the doldrums of late in winning three of its last four games.

And the game the Pirates didn’t win was a tie.

Southeast’s latest two games were victories over Brookfield 4-1 at home Sept. 24 and 2-1 at Waterloo Sept. 29.

Junior holding midfielder Cole Bruno scored both of his team’s goals in the win over the Vikings after the home team had drawn first blood in the opening half. Both of Bruno’s goals were off free kicks, the first one from 25 yards out.

“Waterloo probably struggled a little bit with setting up the wall on that one,” head coach Curtis Ahrens said. “It left the near post wide open, and Cole sent a laser straight in. He stepped into the role we needed him to in this game. We had him play a little bit more defensive-minded, knowing that Waterloo wanted to do quick counterattacks. He has a very clean first touch when they try to play that long ball, which gave us the opportunity to set up and get our attack moving forward.”

The win over the Warriors was the first time all season that Southeast had all 15 of its players available — with no injuries or illnesses.

Freshman forward Jackson Oyster scored two goals.

“Jackson was very opportunistic,” said Ahrens. “One of his goals was off a ball that kind of fell down. The second one was a long throw-in by Cole that landed right on the near post, and Jackson just redirected the ball right into the goal.”

Scoring a goal apiece were senior defender Daniel Allen and junior forward Anderson Bowers, the latter’s first high-school goal.

Defensively, sophomore goalkeeper Garret Davis made a phenomenal save, according to the coach.

Ahrens is not surprised at his team’s turnaround.

“We knew coming into the second half of the year,” he said, “that our schedule definitely favored us a little bit to where the teams we’re playing now give us a little bit more time on the ball, give us a little bit more space so we can execute those things that we’ve been working on all season and putting it together. We’re a very young team with not a lot of experience. The guys are now getting a lot of experience, and it’s starting to show – their decision-making, their touches … they’re all improving.”