Whitehall and Catasauqua’s boys soccer teams met in a season opener on Aug. 23 when the Zephyrs defeated the Rough Riders, 6-1, at Whitehall.

“It’s good to see guys get their first goals of the year and start connecting things, and that happened today,” said Whitehall head coach Christian Malone. “We still have a lot of work to do on possession and moving the ball quickly. I think the standard is Parkland, Emmaus, Northampton. The pace in those games is very, very fast, and so I’m telling the guys you’ve got to play at that speed.”

While Whitehall is a member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, Catasauqua plays in the Colonial League, but the two teams scheduled to face off after failing to do so last year.

“Even with poor results, it’s still beneficial for us to see weaknesses and see strengths and be able to know where the mental capacity is to deal with hardship and those kinds of things,” said Catty head coach Josh Inman. “For the most part, effort across the board was pretty strong. They did a lot of trying as hard as they could to do things that we talked about. Our leaders need to step up a little bit more.”

Catty senior Jayden Olivencia scored the Rough Riders’ lone goal on a penalty kick in the first half.

“It was excellent,” said Coach Inman. “It was good.”

The Zephyrs netted five goals before halftime on scoring from Benji Campbell and two apiece from Justin Hussett and Aiden Schrampf.

Jariel Medina Cotera’s shot with 22:20 remaining in the second half went barely wide right for Catty.

Then, with 3:44 left, Cole Richards scored the Zephyrs’ sixth goal.

Prior to Saturday’s contest, Whitehall scrimmaged Nazareth and Radnor.

“We beat Nazareth in a close game,” said Coach Malone. “We struggled more with Radnor, the state champion last year in 3A. We wanted to test ourselves. I didn’t see good passing in that game, and we weren’t connecting the dots. Here, we did more. I think that was positive to see.”

Both Whitehall and Catty will be in full swing this week in their respective leagues.

“Overall, I don’t think it was a bad situation for us, but it wasn’t the best outcome,” said Inman. “Right now, our depth is what we need to focus on, build up the younger guys, and get the less experienced guys ready as fast as possible.”