Houghton's Wesley Mattila works a pass during a game against Iron Mountain Monday at Houghton High School's Alumni Field. (Eddie O’Neill/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — For the second time in three days, the Houghton Gremlins soccer squad has mercied the Iron Mountain Mountaineers, 8-0. Saturday, it took just 30 minutes. On Monday it took closer to 50, but still, the result was the same

According to Gremlins coach Mark Lounibos, Monday’s game was the better of the two as he was able to get all of his 30-plus players in for some playing time on the pitch.

“Everybody got in, and they got some good playing time at their position,” he said.

Houghton’s scoring campaign began at around the 36-minute mark of the first half. Arobindo Gosh and Caleb Witanen combined for a goal. Less than four minutes later, Witanen found the net again with a blast that went high past Iron Mountain’s netminder for his second goal.

He added an assist to his tally at the 32-minute mark as he fed Braden Kari a pass which resulted in goal No. 3 for the Gremlins.

The fourth tally was a cross-field pass from Ben Waite to Orin Morse at around the 24-minute mark.

The first concluded with Daniel Lounibos scoring the fifth tally and Eli Garnell getting his first of three goals at around the five minute mark.

Mark Lounibos summed up the first half as one in which they controlled the ball — something they have been working on.

“One of our goals going into this game was to possess the ball further down the field,” he said. “We want to keep the ball on the ground at midfield and to avoid big kicks from the backfield. “Our first unit did a good job of that.”

As the second half got under way, Garnel earned a hat trick with back-to-back goals in the 30-minute mark.

“I was happy for Eli,” said Mark Lounibos. “He is just a freshman, but is quite talented. For that matter, we have a lot of young talent on this team, which is exciting for the program.”

Up next

The Gremlins will face their toughest opponent of the 2025 season on Thursday as the Marquette Sentinels come to town. The game starts at 6 p.m. at Houghton High School.