BETHEL – At practice Tuesday, Tim Remington told his soccer team that he wouldn’t have believed anyone who suggested his Telstar Rebels would start the season undefeated.

Now, after a 5-0 victory over Jay Wednesday and a sparkling 5-0 record, the Rebels are making believers out of many and adjusting their own expectations.

“The last couple of years, we started 1-2, and now we’re in a different spot,” said Remington. “We’ve been 1-2 and had to increase and fire up from that. I told them, ‘We’re in a position we’ve never been in, and now we’ve got to maintain that.'”

Telstar had some key holes to fill, especially in goal and at sweeper. After 10 wins last year, the Rebels appeared to be hard-pressed to match that kind of success.

“It was how this group of seniors were going to react,” said Remington. “Last year, we graduated five or six key seniors, but we had a big junior class. It was a matter of whether they were going to mature for another year, and they’ve responded well.”

Kevin Gallagher has stepped into the goal, while Gavin Parker has done a nice job at sweeper to lead the defense. Jay (1-4) managed just six shots overall Wednesday and had just two in the first half as Telstar built a 3-0 lead.

“We had a lot of strong juniors last year,” said senior midfielder Matt Zinchuk. “Some thought it was going to be a rebuilding year, but we knew we were going to do good. We had a lot of good players back.”

Zinchuk had two goals and an assist for the Rebels. He scored the first goal of the game at 12:32. He headed in a Louis Thornton corner kick. Then with 16:52 left in the half, Zinchuk put a dead ball on net, and Thornton was there for the rebound when Jay keeper Camron Fry couldn’t control it. Andy Whitney made it 3-0 with 8:45 left in the half. Chris Schwarz’ corner kick was knocked down by Fry, but Whitney put the loose ball into the net.

“We’ve been playing well together for a long time,” said Zinchuk. “So our timing is key. We’ve been working on that for a long time in practice.”

Zinchuk made it 4-0 midway through the second half. He headed in a Frankie Delduca cross. Then with 13:57 left, Max Meader took the ball from Delduca and scored.

Jay struggled to get much of an attack going against the Rebels. The Tigers best bid came in the opening half when Kyle Lewis put a shot over the net from the left side.

The Rebels are already well on their way toward earning a playoff berth, but with a tough MVC schedule ahead, Remington is stressing a step-by-step approach.

“Its great, but coach just tells us to look forward to the next game and not worry about all the wins,” said Zinchuk. “We just look forward to the next game and make sure that we can win.”