A barrage of second-half goals carried the Edmonds-Woodway High School soccer team to an 8-0 win over visiting Oak Harbor Friday, March 23.

“Progress with a step backwards — that is how I would describe last night,” coach Jeff Laiblin said. “For the first 45 minutes, we had the best defensive and offensive shape of the season. We had multiple opportunities to score. We were stopping a much faster and experienced opponent defensively.

“I was very pleased because the hard work was paying off and we were seeing the improvement that our young team needed to see happening. Then came a mistake and a bad goal.”

From that point, the Wildcats stopped doing what was working and took a “step backwards,” according to Laiblin.

Oak Harbor was also hampered by fatigue. The Wildcats were down to only 12 players less than 15 minutes into the match because of injuries.

As the game progressed, “our legs ran out of gas,” Laiblin said.

“The really sad thing was seven of the goals were so stoppable,” Laiblin said. “They were just bad goals that we gave up.”

Laiblin said the club will focus on the “very successful 45 minutes” and build on that performance.

“I was really proud of the team’s successes and progress last night during those minutes,” he said. “Of course we need to heal up. None of the injuries seem long term, but we need everyone back.”

Oak Harbor (0-2, 0-5-1) heads to Shorecrest (0-2, 2-4) for a 7 p.m. match Tuesday, March 27.