During the opening quarter of the Whitehall boys soccer season, Head Coach Chris Bastidas knew that he would have some growing pains with a very young defense.

But following two big performances last week, the Zephyr offense appears ready to shoulder the load.

Whitehall defeated Stroudsburg 3-1 on Sept. 13 and East Stroudsburg North 5-0 on Sept. 16.

Tony Rodriguez scored twice and Zahir Linton added a goal and an assist against the Mounties. The Zephyrs held Stroudsburg to just four shots in the contest.

Linton followed up his performance against Stroudsburg by recording a hat trick against ES North. Jacob Gier and Aziz Atiyeh each added goals in the Zephyrs’ shutout victory to pull them up to .500 on the season.

“In both games and I thought we played really well. We moved the ball well,“ Bastidas said. “Eight goals in two games in two wins is very exciting. My attacking players are playing well.”

Just six games into the season, the Zephyrs already have more wins than last year.

Whitehall travels to Liberty on Saturday, Sept. 23 and Bangor on Monday, Sept. 25.

The Zephs beat Pocono Mountain East on Tuesday 4-2.

WHS built up a four-goal lead with four tallies in the first half then held off East’s second half rally.

Aziz Atiyeh (from Tony Rodriguez), Jake Gier (from Leandro Ramirez), Zahir Linton (from Kresstoph Whittick) and Linton again (from Aziz Atiyeh) scored for the Zephs.

East got goals from Josh Bent and Gene Gold to cut it to 4-2.

Alex Khouri made four saves in net for the win.