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Travis Church and Phillip Hingst had the give-and-go down.

Dane Ebanez had a blast so strong his coach jokingly said he thought it would go right through the net.

After a slow start, it turned into an offensive show for the North Pole Patriots as they beat the Monroe Catholic Rams 8-1 in a Mid Alaska Conference high school soccer game Friday at Newby Park.

Ebanez and Church each tallied three goals for the Patriots while Hingst provided the other two.

“Phillip and Travis, they got good give-and-goes to each other and they got through and got their shots,” Patriots coach Robert Martinez said. “Dane, he killed one he didn’t need to. I thought he was going to put a hole in the back of the net.”

Monroe came out playing strong defense and trailed the Patriots 2-1 at the break before North Pole broke things open.

“Monroe played well,” Martinez said. “Toward the end of the second half is when things went bad for them. They held us off for a while.”

The Patriots also received a strong performance from sophomore Blayne Kiser in his first game in net.

“He did real well,” Martinez said. “Monroe did shoot a lot on our goal — more than I wanted them to — and he only allowed one it.”

The North Pole girls then finished off the sweep, though just barely.

The Patriots survived a late Monroe rally to hold on for a 3-2 win.

North Pole seemed poised to run away with the game when two goals early in the second half gave them a 3-0 lead, but a penalty kick gave Monroe new life.

Christin Davis deposited the penalty kick — brought on by a North Pole handball in the box — into the upper right corner of the net.

“That kind of woke us up a bit,” Monroe coach Justin Racette said.

Lea Pfronger than made it a one-goal game a few minutes later, sending a high shot the clipped the crossbar, barely crossing the goal line before bouncing back out.

“(She) just snuck it in,” Racette said. “The whole ball over the whole line, that’s all you need.”

But time ran out before the Rams could get another one across the goal line.

“I was really proud of their effort, there wasn’t really any quit in them,” Racette said. “I felt like we had North Pole on the ropes at the end of the game. We just ran out of time.”

West Valley wins

The West Valley boys put out their season’s best performance on the attacking end Friday against Houston.

Nick Herzberg reaped the rewards.

The junior had five goals for the Wolfpack as West Valley claimed a 7-0 win at West Valley.

“He was just on tonight. He’s been off a little bit the past couple games and he put it together today,” Wolfpack coach Alan McGinty said of the junior. “A lot of it was the great passes he received. Every goal he received a pass from a different person. It was a good team effort.”

Six different players registered assists for the Wolfpack, including two who were playing up from junior varsity — Patrick Evans and Taylor Bearden.

Sean Solie and Evan McDonough provided West Valley’s other goals.

“We started moving the ball around again. The boys did good attacking side and defensively,” McGinty said. “We actually used our wings for the first time this year bringing it down the flank and that gave us some opportunities for some crosses.”