For the second time this week the Niles Vikings soccer team proved to be more than the cross-town Brandywine Bobcats could handle.

The Vikings, who beat the Bobcats 8-0 in the championship game of the Vandenberg tournament Monday afternoon, beat the ’Cats 7-0 Saturday afternoon at Niles High School.

Niles has been very aggressive on offense so far this season generating plenty of shots and scoring opportunities and Saturday was no different as the Vikings had more than 30 shots. The problem has been getting all of those shots on goal.

Christian Rackley was the first Viking to find the net as his shot at 7:07 of the first half lofted over the outstretched hands of Brandywine goalie Alex Walters giving the home team the 1-0 lead.

Just 16 seconds later Kai VanAntwerp blasted a shot past Walters giving Niles the 2-0 lead.

The Vikings had a couple of players out resting injuries which gave some opportunities to a couple of JV players to see some varsity action and a couple of those players took advantage of the moment.

Oliver Rodriguez scored for Niles after a shot by Chase Hullinger was saved by Walters and deflected to Rodriguez. Jerge Tejeda dribbled in from the corner and got a shot on the net giving the Vikings a 4-0 lead at the break.

“We wanted to rest some people today who had some nagging injuries and work some other guys into some different areas and develop some of the younger guys a bit,” said Niles assistant coach Ryan Bigelow.

Five minutes into the second half, Hullinger took a pass from Alex Wright and increased the lead to 5-0.

Rackley and VanAntwerp each found the net again bringing the total to 7-0 in favor of the home team.

The Bobcats played better defensively this game then they did the first time these two played, but they only managed to get off two shots in the contest and neither of those shots found the net.

“I feel like we are starting to mark up better and we are starting to know where we need to be on people,” said Brandywine coach Evan Winkler.  “I felt like we played better defensively as a whole, and I have seen improvement since Monday.”

“Brandywine played very hard today and as a soccer coach it was very refreshing to see them fight all the way to the end,” said Bigelow.

Niles will travel to Three Rivers today while the Bobcats will travel to Bridgman.