BLADENBORO – Two dominating wins in two nights have the West Bladen boys’ soccer team eying the N.C. High School Athletic Association 3A playoffs.

A night after topping the last place team in the Southeastern Conference in a 7-1 decision against South Columbus, the Knights rolled past first place Red Springs 6-1 on Wednesday.

Jonah Bryan scored four goals and had two assists for the Knights (5-9-1, 3-3-0 Southeastern), who close the regular season next week at South Columbus and home against South Brunswick.

“I’m proud of the team,” Bryan said. “Coach (Brett Jackson) has been pushing us at practice. I really feel like we executed what we’ve been doing in practice.”

As for his scoring spree, Bryan said, “I can’t do it by myself. It’s all team.”

Diego Santos assisted on Bryan’s first two goals. The first goal came five minutes into the game when Santos delivered a through ball to Bryan, who found the back of the goal. A few minutes later, Bryan made it 2-0 after receiving a low cross from Santos.

After a Red Springs goal cut the margin in half, the pair switched roles for the Knights’ third goal with Bryan connecting on a through ball to Santos for the score and a 3-1 lead. West Bladen made it 4-1 in the closing minutes of the first half when Bryan was fouled in the box and scored on a penalty kick.

In the second half, Bryan’s corner kick resulted in a goal by Alejandro Lopez. Bryan capped the scoring with four minutes remaining, launching a liner to the top corner after a deep cross from Levi Garcia.

Wilvert Funez had five saves for West Bladen.

“This is a big win,” Jackson said after beating the Red Devils. “We knew this was going to kind of determine how the end of our season was going to go. We came out, we played the way we should have been playing all season. We attacked really well, had a lot of momentum coming in from (Tuesday night’s win), scored quite a few goals, and played well on the defensive side. They finally played the way I knew they were capable of playing. So I’m very proud of them tonight. Big time win over Red Springs.”

West Bladen had lost four straight matches prior to winning on consecutive nights and went 0-3-1 to open the season in August, but Bryan believes the Knights are coming together down the stretch.

“We had a rough start at the beginning, but really that chemistry is really building now and we’re playing together, passing is looking good,” Bryan said. “Pretty glad to get some conference wins in and see what we can do next.”

Sonny Jones can be reached at [email protected].