Shariff scored a pair of goals in 10 seconds in the first half and added his hat trick goal in the second to help lift Lewiston to a 4-1 win over Brewer in the teams’ KVAC season-opener on Saturday.

“I expected him to come through this year, and I expect to do it as a team,” McGraw said. “He is going to attract a lot of attention, so the other guys are going to have to step up, too.”

Mohamed Abdisalan had the Blue Devils’ other goal, and Abdulkarim Abdulle added three helpers — all on Shariff’s goals.

Oisin Biswas scored for the Witches, who used an offside trap in the second half to try and slow down the devils’ speedy attack.

“We know Lewiston’s a fast team, and they like to swing the ball and pull it back and they like to try to catch teams pinching up and play balls through,” Brewer coach Ben Poland said. “We really stressed that at halftime, not playing into that. Our defenders were being a little more attentive to where they were on the field, and we were able to pull up a little bit more, and we were able to catch them offsides.”

“They had a strategy for that, it worked well,” McGraw said. “More power to them. They did what they had to do to come in here.”

McGraw was more concerned with his own team’s play, despite the three-goal win.

“We played how we were capable for oh, about 4.3 minutes,” McGraw said. “Then after that, I thought we played pretty badly. The timing wasn’t right, we lacked motivation. But then, we also have to give Brewer credit for that. In the end, we had some very nice chances, but they didn’t finish.”

In this opening five minutes, though, the Devils could do no wrong. The pinned the Witches deep from the opening tap, and Shariff put the home team on top at 4:59 after taking a feed from Abdulle through the middle. One on one with Brewer keeper Caleb Eggert, Shariff tapped the ball into the corner for a 1-0 lead.

On the ensuing tap, the combination worked again, as Shariff raced into the box on a give-and-go with Abdulle, again picking his spot and rolling the ball over the line.

“I try to not put pressure on myself,” Shariff said. “I just try to see where I am at, and place the ball. The second one, after I made the pass and made my run, I looked up at the keeper and he was off his line, so I put it around him.”

Brewer was down, but not out.

“The last two years when we’ve played them, the first 15 minutes have been the most difficult,” Poland said. “I told the guys, if we can hold it together for the first 15 minutes, I like our chances. Even with those two quick goals, I still felt pretty good, even though I didn’t feel we were playing anywhere near where we should be playing.”

Lewiston added another in the 31st minute on Abdisalan’s strike after he picked off the ball in the middle of the field, caught the keeper way off his line and popped it over him and into the cage.

The Witches started the second half quickly, getting their goal in the first minute on a corner kick. The ball first dropped at the near post on the right side. Lewiston keeper Austin Wing punched at the ball, which deflected to the back post, to a waiting Biswas, who touched it into the cage.

“We’ve been working on our set pieces quite a bit, our positioning, making sure we have that outside post covered,” Poland said. “That was our outside mid on that side, he made his run and it came right to him on that side.”

Lewiston tried to counter quickly, but whistle after whistle for offside derailed its efforts.

“I think in the second half, they found out what our weakness is,” Shariff said. “They started doing their offside traps, and it was a different game. We’ll continue to improve and get better at that.

“It’s always scary when the other team scores in the first five minutes of the second half,” Shariff added. “You don’t know what else is coming. We had to pick up our intensity and play our game.”

Lewiston’s defenders and midfield tightened up the middle of the field, Wing made a couple more saves and Shariff finished things off with 18:34 to play with his third, cleaning up Abdulle’s shot off the post.

“If we can do that on a more consistent basis, we’ll see success,” McGraw said. “We have to sort some things out, work on our timing. I don’t know what it was today, whether it was the weather, or the start time, I don’t know But I do think we can do better.”

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