Northampton head boys’ soccer coach Adam Bastidas believes his team can achieve its long-range goal of making the league and district playoffs. It is just a matter of how they get there.

Through their first four games, the Konkrete Kids are 2-2 and all appears to be on an upward spiral. The Kids already have passed the quarter pole from last year’s 6-12 campaign.

“So far, we have played pretty well,” said Bastidas. “I think our end goal is well within reach. We look to be on pace to get to the district playoffs. We won both games we thought we could win and we almost worked out a tie with Emmaus. We did not play well against Central Catholic.”

Bastidas was referring to wins over Notre Dame and Whitehall by identical 4-0 scores, and defeats suffered to Emmaus (a 2-1 score) and to Allentown Central Catholic (4-1).

He did credit the play of seniors defender Matt Peluszak and Tyler Andrews along with midfielder Cameron Peploe, all of who have lived up to preseason expectations. Ryan Keenan also has been a steady contributor in the early going. Keenan had four goals and Cameron Pope had three tallies through the team’s first four games.

“Peluszak and Andrews have really played solid for us on defense,” added Bastidas. “Cameron (Pope) has been great for us so far. They can help us keep going and power through some things.

“Ryan Keenan has scored a number of goals for us and has really played well.”

With the bulk of the East Penn Conference games awaiting, Bastidas is confident his club can withstand the oncoming assault. They began play this week against Parkland [a 4-0 loss] and then will host Nazareth and Dieruff.

“Going into the season, we expected to make districts,” he stated. “We needed to have some early success and that has worked out. We believe we are capable of winning nine games and we can probably win as many as 11. That would be really nice.

“The kids are playing with a lot of confidence and they truly believe we can beat a number of good teams.”

Yet, he is keeping everything in its proper perspective.

“We just need to take one game at a time,” Bastidas stated. “We just want to focus on the next game. We just have to stay prepared. If we execute the way we can, we should be in good shape. We also just have to hope for the best.”