WILSON, NORTH CAROLINA – It’s early days in the U.S. Youth Soccer National League, but the Baltimore Bays U15 team under Brandon Quaranta put on a mid-season type show here Thursday at the Gillett Soccer Complex.

Forced to play a little more direct than they would have liked due to a choppy field (following heavy rains here earlier in the week), the Bays team still played a nice game of possession and defeated Michigan Wolves 3-0.

Christian Porras was excellent on the evening, scoring once on a free kick and then again from a scramble in front of the net after a teasing serve from Jonathan Barron. Romilio Hernandez scored the final Bays goal, also after a good delivery from Barron. Hernandez was also good at controlling the ball with his feet and distributing.

Defenders Anthony Butta and James O’Connor were solid at the back for Bays, while goalkeeper Matthew Sanchez showed excellent reflexes.

These were needed because despite the scoreline, Dave Hicklin’s Wolves showed they were a good team and will cause opposing defenses trouble this season. Ali Jawad was pulling the strings as an attacking midfielder and showing a lot of skill. Benjamin Holbrook likewise has a lot of skill on the ball and good vision in his passing.

While a couple of tough bounces went against them on the evening, the Michigan back line of Andrew Prince, Jarrett Gorman, Jake Gervich and Zachary Lowes shows a lot of promise both in defending and helping building the attack from the rear.

"This is our fifth game together. We’ve got 8 new players. To be honest I’m happy with the effort. We didn’t play our best soccer. We’re 5 games into a long season against a very good team, so you have to be pretty pleased,” Quaranta said. “I think we can play better at times but I’m nitpicking. Our 16 teams is probably one of the best Academy teams in the country so we’re able to keep those 15s together in their age group and play U.S. Youth. All of our teams have the same Academy training format, but classifications for the competition are different.”

Full Results for Thursday,  U.S. Youth Soccer National League
(courtesy U.S. Youth Soccer)

Hicksville: Colin Heffron (70:00), Dominic Bonilla (85:00)