s a young and inexperienced team navigating its way through the first season in a new conference, the Beloit Memorial boys soccer team was in need of a confidence booster.

It doesn’t get much better than an 11-0 mercy-ruled win, which the Purple Knights subjected Wilmot to as they earned their first-ever Southern Lakes Conference victory on Tuesday night at Jacobson Field.

“We passed the ball around pretty well,” senior forward JJ Plascencia said. “We had a lot of chances on goal, and we had a lot of shots. We played the ball really well, we worked and we made it happen.”

“The kids came out and played hard today,” head coach Brian Denu said. “We’ve been focusing a lot on just getting our passing down. We want to play as much two-touch as possible because our strength is our speed and our technical ability.”

Plascencia got the onslaught started with a score just under two minutes into the contest. He kicked a rocket from outside the box, putting it to the far side of the goal and away from Panthers’ goalie Mason Moravectz.

“I had a lot of chances and felt pretty good today,” said Plascencia. “And all of the freshmen helped me out a lot, opening the ball up to them and getting some goals.”

The Knights have a slew of sophomores and freshmen, with five frosh seeing action Tuesday night.

Denu said that a win like this is huge for the younger players’ mindsets.

“Hopefully, now we’re going to be ready to take the next step,” he said. “To get the first (SLC win) convincingly, and to have so many guys be a part of it, that was nice.”

Freshman Jared Barajas had two first-half goals on his way to a hat trick. He scored back-to-back goals, showing off his speed on the second score as he outran a defender before putting it in the back of the net, to make it 3-0.

“Jared is a really good player,” Plascencia said. “I’ve seen him grow up and to see him develop as a player is really great.”

Another freshman, John Anthony Aburto, scored back-to-back goals midway through the first half to make it 5-0.