It wasn’t the start that Aberdeen Central wanted, but the Golden Eagles got a boost from their senior leader and bolted to a 3-0 boys’ soccer win over Harrisburg Saturday afternoon at Brownell Activities Complex.

“We started uncharacteristically slow today. We were a little flat,” said Central coach Lance Mohr. “We’ve kind of had a grind of schedule, Tuesday-Saturday, Tuesday-Saturday. I think today it finally caught up with us a little bit.”

It was senior captain Sekou Gogue that changed the complexion of the contest. He took a free kick and promptly deposited it in the left corner of the goal to give Central a lead, and more importantly a renewed energy in the 13th minute.

“We got a nice break with a good finish by Sekou to kind of give us a little shot of adrenaline,” Mohr said.

Mohr said the Eagles have designed set pieces, but that the goal was all Gogue’s choice of what to do.

“The finish was just fantastic,” Mohr said. “He has the soccer IQ to pick where he needs to go and he can execute it, which those two things don’t come generally in the same person.”

Gogue said he usually scopes out of the defense to locate any potential openings before deciding where to go with the ball.

“I usually look at the position of the wall and then if I have one side clearly open, if the goalie is not on that side, then that’s where I’ll go,” Gogue said. “He was covering behind the wall, so I thought I’ll just hit it as hard as I can low post, so that’s what I did.”

Gogue said he knew the attempt had a chance the second it left his foot.

“I felt good about it right away,” he said.

Even when Gogue isn’t scoring, he is constantly around the ball and creating opportunities for himself and for his teammates (he assisted on one of Central’s other two goals). That puts added pressure on opponents.

“You can really tell how a player touches, manipulates a soccer ball. It gives his other guys around him, it makes them make additional runs because they know he can get them the ball into spaces and he can take the space himself,” Mohr said. “He causes so much of a distraction for the other team. It’s just figuring out how these other guys can play off it and maximize it, because he’s a special player and he knows that.”

Gogue said experience plays a big role in how he handles himself on the pitch.

“It’s just a lot of time playing varsity, playing with a lot of good people,” Gogue said. “I’m just comfortable now.”

Central added two more goals within 75 seconds of each other later in the half.

Tyler Bain produced the first one, before Creighton Aberle scored from nearly 30 yards out.

Mohr got his player’s attention at halftime to make sure they did not start the second half the way they started the game.

“It was a good response, because I had a pretty strong reaction at halftime to the way that we approached the first half of the game with our mentality and our intensity,” Mohr said.

That message was received and executed as the Eagles spent the majority of the second half on the Harrisburg side of the field. While Central was unable to score, it made sure that the Tigers didn’t have any solid chances to get on the board.

“We kind of got chewed out in the locker room,” Gogue said. “We weren’t really pressuring in the first half, so we just had to pick that up.”

The shutout is Central’s fourth this season and third in a row. Mohr said defense has been a point of emphasis this season.

“That’s obviously been a focus for us this year,” Mohr said. “We’ve minimized the amount of times that we’ve been scored on.”

As a result, the Eagles are 6-2-1 heading down the home stretch of the season and are playing with a lot of confidence.

“We’re starting to play our best soccer,” Gogue said, “so I’m feeling good about it.”

Central will return to action on Tuesday, Sept. 20 at Watertown.

Mohr has plans for his team’s break in the action.

“We’re going to focus a lot on defending, defensive pressure, and just really tighten things up,” he said. “I look for a big result for us, a big game for us that following Tuesday against Watertown.”

Harrisburg 0 0 – 0

Aberdeen Central 3 0 – 3

First Half

1, AC, Sekou Gogue (free kick), 13^th minute; 2, AC, Tyler Bain (Gogue), 36^th minute; 3, AC, Creighton Aberle (Jordan Grieben), 37^th minute.

Second Half

No scoring.

Shots on Goal: Harrisburg 1; Aberdeen Central 8.

Goalies: Harrisburg, Josiah Hutton (5 saves); Aberdeen, Camden Fauth (1 save).