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<p>WRIGHT TWP. &#8212; Wyoming Valley West&#8217;s biggest win of the season came Wednesday night in Crestwood.</p><p>Just in time for playoffs.</p><p>The 2-1 victory was also an example of what will propel the Spartans into districts as one of the hottest teams, sitting at 13-2-1.</p><p>&#8220;I truly believe it&#8217;s a team. It&#8217;s a team this year,&#8221; Wyoming Valley West head coach Charlie Whited said after Wednesday&#8217;s win. &#8220;There isn&#8217;t one or two guys that you can tee on because you see that our scoring is all over. We probably have six guys with five, six, seven goals. If you look in the leaderboards, we&#8217;re not there. But if you look in the standings, we&#8217;re right there. Which tells me team unity.&#8221;</p><p>Whited is right.</p><p>There wasn&#8217;t a single Spartan in the Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 top-10 scoring leaderboard heading into the week. But that doesn&#8217;t mean what Wyoming Valley West has done this season hasn&#8217;t worked.</p><p>Whited has just asked certain players to make sacrifices for the better of the team.</p><p>Just look at senior Nate Naugle. He&#8217;s been a &#8220;forward his whole life,&#8221; but after exits of a handful of key contributors left the program, Whited asked the senior to play outside right.</p><p>And Naugle has thrived, even scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal in Wednesday&#8217;s win. He also had a pair of goals in Friday&#8217;s 4-0 win over Tunkhannock.</p><p>&#8220;In all the years I&#8217;ve been coaching here, this is the first team that I would say that, it&#8217;s the team that any coach would want,&#8221; Whited said. &#8220;The boys listen. There&#8217;s no back talk. The discipline&#8217;s great. They&#8217;re adapting to the positions they&#8217;ve been put in.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;If you look at our team, the scoring, nobody has a high rank (in the conference). Everybody scores,&#8221; Naugle added. &#8220;It&#8217;s not just one player scoring on a team. It&#8217;s everybody. Everybody&#8217;s contributing.&#8221;</p><p>The ball movement was also evident on Wednesday, with Naugle and sophomore Saquan Portee scoring the two Wyoming Valley West goals.</p><p>It doesn&#8217;t matter if you ask Naugle or senior goalkeeper Chris Stoodley. They both respond with the same answer as to why this team has turned it around after last year&#8217;s 7-6-1 campaign.</p><p>&#8220;We just get the ball off our foot,&#8221; Stoodley said. &#8220;We just kept working hard, came in every day and we just want to win.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Simple. Very simple. Keep the ball moving,&#8221; Naugle said. &#8220;No dribbling. Nobody&#8217;s selfish on the team. It&#8217;s great.&#8221;</p><p>Not only has there been improvement from a season ago, the Spartans have made great strides since their early-season falters, too.</p><p>Wyoming Valley West had a two-goal lead when the two teams met on Sept. 24, only to lose 3-2.</p><p>And what about Dallas? After falling 2-0 in the two team&#8217;s first meeting on Sept. 4, Wyoming Valley West was able to muster a 0-0 tie in their Sept. 28 meeting.</p><p>Improvement.</p><p>&#8220;I can see that we&#8217;ve improved tremendously,&#8221; Whited said. &#8220;We&#8217;re very patient and structured. We&#8217;re doing a great job. I can&#8217;t say enough about them. After that first one against Crestwood, it was tough to handle because we were up 2-0 that time. I&#8217;m proud of the boys for hanging in there and playing the game the right way.&#8221;</p><p>With improvement comes confidence.</p><p>After a road win against Crestwood and a tie against the Mountaineers, Wyoming Valley West can take some momentum into districts.</p><p>&#8220;It just lets us go in feeling strong, &#8221; Stoodley said. &#8220;We know we can take these teams. We just want to go in and see what we can do.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wyoming Valley West goalkeeper Chris Stoodley made 21 stops on 22 Crestwood shots to propel the Spartans to their biggest win of the season. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1_TTL101818Crestwood-WVWBSOC_4-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wyoming Valley West goalkeeper Chris Stoodley made 21 stops on 22 Crestwood shots to propel the Spartans to their biggest win of the season. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>All-for-one Valley West boys head to soccer districts with confidence</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Wyoming Valley West boys soccer heading into districts with confidence