The Bearcat soccer team started its season on a high note with a dominant 8-0 victory over Dougherty, but they stumbled against Veterans on a short week of practice falling 7-4.

Caleb Harris, Angel Munoz and Leroy Rivera each scored at least two goals for Bainbridge against Dougherty.

“They maintained an offense that couldn’t be dealt with,” head coach Rick Lewis said. “They had ample opportunities to score.”

In the team’s second game of the season, they faced a Veterans team that won their region last season and had more games so far this year to build stamina in.

“Quite honestly, we weren’t up to task,” Lewis said. “We got out of formation early and were just not able to hold them off. In the end they had better stamina.”

The Bearcats held the lead at four separate times in the game before Veterans pulled away with three unanswered goals. Rivera scored the first goal for Bainbridge only 28-seconds in on an assist from Harris. Jose Pardon scored the team’s second goal and Munoz found the back of the net on an assist from Rivera for the third goal. Rivera scored his second goal of the game on a penalty kick.

Lewis said that the team’s lackluster performance in practice leading up to the game played a role in the defeat and that he believes his team learned a valuable lesson in the game.

“It let my team know that they weren’t practicing hard enough,” Lewis said. “They were hungry. They go up there to Dougherty and get an easy win.…They just thought this was going to be easy. This was an eye-opener. My guess is that I won’t have to worry about practice intensity the rest of the year.“

Bainbridge will return to the field on Wednesday against Westover.