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AMERICAN FORK — Lewis Knecht isn't thinking about what's possible for his team after knocking off archrival Lone Peak Wednesday.
Not even being one goal away from doubling his entire scoring output last year or an 11-0-2 start to the season has changed his outlook. Instead, he's just focused on the next match — and so are his teammates.
The entire state may want to think about how many goals and how many players will score for the American Fork Cavemen in their next match, who are now level on 21 points with Region 3 co-leaders Lone Peak following their 2-0 derby win. The Cavemen have hit both Orem and Skyridge for 9 goals, while scoring over three goals in all but five of their matches.
"We can't just have faith that we can win a game, we have to know we can win a game," American Fork midfielder and co-captain Ben Harley said. "Every single one of us knows we can win."
Cavemen coach Casey Waldron has certainly seen his team do that and then some in the last few weeks after American Fork was shellacked at Lone Peak 6-2 in the reverse fixture on April 12, which Harley boldly called "a fluke".
It's that kind of outspoken and brash leadership out of Harley and Knecht that Waldron said his Cavemen have leaned on to get them to where they are.
"We all just love each other so much," Harley said. "We're just always together off the field, getting food after practice or whatever; it's always more fun when you're with your brothers."
It's even better when you have a deadly scorer like Knecht. The senior co-captain had only 9 goals last season, but he bagged both goals in Wednesday's win — a 16th-minute penalty and a solo goal to seal it with 25 minutes remaining — to up his total to 17 on the campaign, which is tops in the state.
"Nothing's come easy for this team; we've worked for every single bit of it," he said. "I'm not the same player I used to be."
And rightfully so it hasn't come easy; American Fork was dominated for long stretches of Wednesday's match against Lone Peak. In fact, Knecht's second goal to effectively seal the win came out of a one-man counterattack, sprung by a lofted ball from Harley that was misplayed by the Knights' back line.
Knecht dribbled from his weaker right foot to his stronger left foot and sent a low bullet into the far corner that sent the crowd gathered on lawn chairs and towels into bedlam.
"Even when you feel like you're being dominated, to still see opportunities and punish a team shows us how advantageous we are," Waldron said. "Possession and passing never mean anything in soccer unless you can score goals."
Resilience and grit also matters; Waldron added while it can't be taught, as a coach, it makes him proud to know that his Cavemen have that desire to do whatever it takes to win.
"As a team, we've been a reading a book called 'The Energy Bus'; it just talks about positive energy," Knecht said. "There's games where we've been down a goal in the last two minutes; we always find a way back because we can flip that switch and get better as the game goes on."
Knecht also credited his coach for having a clear vision for what they want to accomplish, which allows the players to continually trust each other — hence the resilience and brotherhood which has been so prevalent this season for American Fork.
"There's a lot of maturity on our team," Waldron said. "As we get more experience, we're going to continue to be feared, and that's only going to help us get more confident as we move forward."
And while Waldron added there were times his team could have beaten some of their other opponents handily this season, he knows what they can be, and that alone should instill fear into other squads looking to derail the Cavemen's title aspirations.
Their confidence is indeed growing too, just as Waldron said, embodied in the comments of Harley, who said the Cavemen knew they could beat Lone Peak and weren't afraid of the Knights — which is the energy they expect to bring to every match.
"I'm trying to do whatever I can to help my team succeed," Knecht said. "When everyone wants to buy into what our culture is, my job is to just make sure it keeps happening."
The records of the teams in soccer are denoted by wins-draws-losses. The penalty shootout victories are officially known as draws.
