Remember the Tomah High School boys soccer team that let all those scoring chances slip away in a 0-0 tie against La Crosse Aquinas Sept. 2?
That team has become a distant memory.
Tomah’s offense has gone high-octane, and it reached warp speed Tuesday with a stunning 6-2 Mississippi Valley Conference victory over La Crosse Central Tuesday at E.J. McKean Field.
It was Tomah’s fourth straight victory. The Timberwolves defeated River Falls, 3-2, and Menomonie, 4-2, at the MVC/Big Rivers Conference Challenge Saturday at Chippewa Falls.
Tomah has scored 17 goals in its last four games.
“Our guys thought they were going to score every time they got the ball,” Tomah coach Scott Conzemius said after the Central game. “They’re playing confident, and they’re playing very dangerous offensively.”
The shocking aspect was how early the Timberwolves rang up the goals. Tomah scored all six goals between the sixth and 31st minutes and converted five of its first seven shots.
Central actually had a brief lead. Just 67 seconds into the match, Tomah couldn’t clear a Central free kick and Drew Ghelfi pounced on the loose ball to unload a pinpoint crossing shot that gave the Raiders a 1-0 lead.
“I was really disappointed we allowed that goal in the first couple of minutes,” Conzemius said. “After that, it was like the guys decided, ‘no, this isn’t us,’ and got fired up.”
The advantage lasted less than five minutes. Jacob Dellamuth took a forwarding pass from Travis Blinkiewicz and raced past two Central defenders to score on a breakaway.
Three minutes later, Zach Johnson juked a defender and walked in for another breakaway.
Central almost tied the match a minute later when a ball got loose in front of Tomah goalkeeper Kyle Waltemath. Tomah defender Ethan Hubert kicked the ball clear to preserve Tomah’s 2-1 lead.
It was all Tomah after that. Dellamuth scored off a deep inbounds pass in the 14th minute, and Kevin Betthauser scored two minutes later after taking a perfectly executed inbounds pass from Matt Ferry.
In the 19th minute, Dellamuth scored off a corner kick. Eleven minutes later, Blinkiewicz, who missed much of the first half with a bloody nose, took a perfect centering pass from Ferry and slid a 10-footer past Central’s unprotected goalkeeper.

