SYRACUSE – If any lesson could be taken from Wawasee’s soccer game with visiting Goshen Tuesday night it would be this: Don’t poke the bear.

The Redskins entered the game ranked No. 5 in the state coaches poll and even higher in online polls provided by such sites like Max Preps. Goshen hardly played its best at times and even looked like it would let a game slip away to Wawasee at times but a turning point in the first half led to an eventual 7-2 win for the Redskins.

Goshen held a 1-0 lead over Wawasee with 6:21 remaining in the opening half thanks to a goal from Lucas Bontreger. This lead was lost thanks to a successful penalty kick from Wawasee’s Carlos Camargo who, a kick that was the result of a yellow card in the box against a Goshen defender. Goshen head coach Viratham Mounsithiraj, better known as “V”, asked for an explanation on the call following Camargo’s goal and that was apparently the wrong thing to do.

V’s desire for an explanation was met with disdain from head referee, Gustavo Hernandez, who was quick to pull out the red card, dismissing the Goshen coach from the remainder of the game.

This sudden swing in momentum certainly could have derailed the Redskins play but Goshen’s players, clearly upset about the highly questionable red card against their coach, took their anger out on the field. Aaron Urzua gave the visitors the lead back with a goal not even two minutes after the red card. Wawasee dodged a bullet in right before the half as Goshen missed a PK attempt, leaving the score 2-1 at the break.

While Goshen was truly playing with determination at that point, Wawasee gave itself another chance to run with the big dogs of the conference off another goal from Camargo. This one came off a free kick near the top of the box and knotted the score at 2-2. After that, it was all downhill for the Warriors. Goshen added five more goals, one of which appeared completely unattested by Wawasee, to seal the win.

Maybe that was the most disappointing thing for Wawasee fans Tuesday evening, a highly ranked team comes in and plays far from its best game and the Warriors hardly seemed interested in taking advantage of that at times. Wawasee head coach Jordan Sharp had a long talk with his team following the defeat.

“We talked to them about being competitive,” said Sharp. “I talked them about how we were in the game twice. Twice. We were in the game, playing and competing with them and then Goshen gets that third goal, we’re still kind of there then that fourth goal came and our guys just put their heads down and just gave up. That was frustrating.

“Our talk really just came down to motivation and how these boys want to get motivated. We left them over there to talk about it as a team one I had said my thoughts on that matter. Hopefully we can figure it out.”

Sharp attributed a lot of Tuesday’s game performance to a poor practice on Monday. The Warriors were playing arguably their best soccer of the season in back-to-back wins over Columbia City and East Noble last week, but that apparently has not carried over to this week yet.

Wawasee (3-8-1, 0-4) will travel to Lakeland Thursday and host Warsaw as part of a boys/girls double header this Saturday.

Wawasee’s JV lost 5-0 to Goshen.