Central's Abu Dukuly pasts a free kick over the Vanier wall on Monday at VLA Field.

A slow start for the Vanier Vikings ended up costing them big in Moose Jaw High School Boys Soccer action on Monday.

The Central Cyclones handed Vanier their first loss of the season as they cruised to an 8-0 win at VLA Field. The win puts Central at 2-0-1 on the year, while Vanier drops to 2-1-1.

“We thought it was going to be a close game, but we were missing a few key players again and we're moving some people around,” said Jaysen Tomashewski, head coach of the Vikings. “The first half we just didn't get it together. In the second half, we started to get something going – we had a little bit of defence and could generate some offence – but too little too late.”

Central scored six times in the opening half and despite some late pressure for the Vikings, they couldn't fight their way back.

Michael Kalume finished with a hat trick for the Cyclones, while Abu Dukuly scored twice and Jama Jibil, Matt Pilsworth and Ime Beisha scored the other three markers for Central in the win.

“I saw lot of good stuff that we're working on,” said Jason Brown, Central's head coach. “They're starting to buy into the system and spreading the ball around, I saw lots of good stuff.”

The Cyclones were able to push the pace of play throughout the game and remained on the attack during the contest. Brown said that was nice to see, but he would also like them to play more in control.

“They really like to attack,” he said. “There's more than enough skill on this team to be able to take the ball from one end to the other with passing among the teammates, but if they go back to their old way and get jammed up in the middle, they can't play with that skill.”

The score in Monday's game was in stark contrast to their first meeting two weeks ago as they battled to a 1-1 draw. The difference in score shows the progress that Central has been able to make.

“We went to a tournament, so we had four games and we've had three or four practices since that first game, so the guys are just starting to understand things better,” said Brown.

Tomashewski said this loss can serve his team well.

“We've been a little lackadaisical when we get to practices because when you're undefeated (you think) that you don't have to fix anything, but there's definitely things to work on,” he said. “We had lots of opportunities in that second half that we just didn't finish and we could have made it a game.

“We can take a look at what we did wrong, we broke down on defence a lot and they had some opportunities that shouldn't have been there.”

There's just one game left in the regular season as Central takes on Peacock on Wednesday afternoon. The semifinal goes next Wednesday with the league final coming on Oct. 15.