Almost from the moment he stepped off the team bus Thursday, Mayde Creek boys soccer coach Mike Latta reveled in the stiff southerly wind.

The Rams used it to their advantage in their 5A area playoff game against Westside, scoring two goals into the wind and keeping the ball on the ground like an option football team in a 3-0 victory at Seven Lakes.

“When you have the wind in your face like that, you have to keep control of the ball and keep control of the game,” Latta said. “If the wind gets to the ball in the air, it does funny things and it messes the kids up. It’ll curve too much or it’ll knuckle and it’s really hard to control the game. So it’s best for my guys to keep the ball on the ground and get it to a guy running, barely. Just keep it on the ground.”

Ahmed Buazza, Steven Salinas and Brett Sanchez scored for Mayde Creek (16-5-2), which advances to play Eisenhower or Cinco Ranch in a regional quarterfinal next week.

The Rams have thrived for most of the season with five midfielders after opening the season by playing four forwards, four midfielders and two defenders most of the time.

Two of the midfielders – Buazza and Salinas – scored Thursday.

“Every once in a while we’ll take a defender up and put him with the midfielders just to control the game,” Latta said. “If you can control the middle third of a play, you have a much better chance of winning. And when we take that fourth defender out and push him up the middle of the field, it leaves another midfielder to help run the defense so you’re almost running three forwards at times. …

“It’s a real advantage and a lot of teams aren’t ready for it.”

Yuri Flores, the Rams’ leading scorer with 14 goals, cut through two Westside defenders to assist Buazza on the first goal about 18 minutes into the game.

Salinas made it 2-0 with eight minutes left in the first half, drawing Westside’s goalie to his left and sneaking the ball in to the right.

Sanchez added more insurance with 20 minutes to play in the game.

“We used the same mentality we’ve used every game – we come to win and we come to attack,” Buazza said. “Since we moved to a 3-5-2 we’ve had more ball control in the midfield. Yuri Flores has been a great forward for us. He’s our top scorer and a great finisher, but everyone does their work and gets their job done.”

The Cougars will find out their next opponent Friday when Cinco and Eisenhower play at Rhodes Stadium.

If next week’s opponent is Cinco Ranch, the outcome surely will be different than the Cougars and Rams’ previous two meetings. Those games ended in 2-2 and 1-1 ties.

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