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THREE RIVERS — Visiting Dowagiac had trouble matching Three Rivers’ quickness in Thursday’s 5-1 non-conference loss at Armstrong Field.

“The biggest difference in this match tonight was the speed of Three Rivers. They have a few kids who are super-fast and that’s hard to compete with. As a team, we need to collectively work together to shut that down,” said Dowagiac Coach Joey Pasternak.

Three Rivers built a 3-0 advantage after the opening 40 minutes of the match. All three of the Wildcats’ goals were scored by the Wildcats’ star senior forward Christian Selent.

Selent, a four-year varsity letter winner, put Three Rivers up 1-0 at the 33:23 mark of the first half when he scored on a penalty kick. The Wildcats’ top goal scorer went on to record his rare first-half hat trick by tacking on two more goals before the break at 20:18 and 13:08.

Junior Alex Lubieniecki (32:22) and teammate Derek Roggelien (14:33) added goals for Three Rivers during the second half to extend its lead to 5-0.

Dowagiac, now 2-11, averted the shutout when junior forward Andres Hernandez scored off an assist from senior AJ Munson with 11:28 remaining in the match.

Three Rivers earned a 13-9 advantage over Dowagiac in shots on goal.

Inexperience is still something Dowagiac is fighting, but Pasternak has seen a lot of growth take place with his team since the beginning of the season.

“Experience wise we are a pretty young team, but I think many of our kids have made huge strides since the beginning of the year and now,” Pasternak said.

“In the second half we did a better job of moving the ball. Our problem this season has been being able to finish those scoring chances when we have them.”

Junior goal keeper Tyler Hannapel enjoyed a fine night in goal for Dowagiac registering seven saves.

“Tyler played a really good match today. When he’s aggressive and comes out he does really well. The few goals that Three Rivers had were one-on-one situations which are difficult for any keeper to stop,” Pasternak said. “For a first-year varsity player he’s really stepped up and came a long way from where he was when the season started.”

Three Rivers head coach Brad Selent was pleased with the win.

“Our kids played well and our defense has come a long way from where it was in our second or third match of the season,” said Three Rivers’ coach. “We are outmatched by a lot of teams physicality wise so we have to use our quickness to our advantage.”