Warren Central defeated South Warren 2-0 on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, at South Warren. (Austin Anthony / photo@bgdailynews.com)

Warren Central sophomore Fahrudin Alic has brought a welcome surprise to the start of the Dragons’ soccer season.

Typically, his job in the midfield is to set up plays for outside strikers rather than scoring himself. But Alic has taken advantage of early opportunities and the Dragons have started the season with two wins because of it.

Alic scored Warren Central’s only two goals in a 2-0 win over South Warren on Tuesday night to open District 14 play at South Warren High School.

Alic scored a goal in each half to give him three on the season, which matches his scoring total as a freshman. Although Dragons coach Aaron Ray was obviously excited to see his playmaker in the middle scoring goals, he wants the offense to continue setting up shot opportunities for his outside forwards.

“When it starts to click, that’s when it starts to become dangerous,” Ray said. “We’ve got the playmakers scoring the goals and the guys supposed to be scoring aren’t getting shots on frame yet. … We’ve got to get the goal scorers going. It’ll get better as we go.”

Warren Central (2-0) is already picking up where it left off defensively in 2016, having not allowed a goal yet through two games. Last year, the Dragons had the best defense in Region 4 with 15 regulation goals allowed.

Warren Central opened the season with a 3-0 win at Apollo on Monday with goals from Alic, Elocho Ramazani and Kaw Wah. Adding a district win with Warren East approaching on Thursday only adds to an already confident group.

“It’s definitely given us a boost in experience,” Alic said. “We’re just hoping to get better from here on.”

South Warren opened its season Tuesday with minimal scoring opportunities. The Warren Central backline kept the Spartans (0-1) out of range of any scoring threats save for one clean shot from Carlos Ramos that goalkeeper Kemal Esmic deflected in the ninth minute.

After that, South Warren spent the next 71 minutes with just three shots on goal.

“I think we were nervous as a team,” SWHS coach Tom Alexander said. “I think there’s a lot of pressure they’re putting on themselves that we need to go away … I expect us to get a lot better. Unfortunately, this was a district game and we’re in a seeded district and that wasn’t our best game.”

Alic slid the first goal past Spartans senior keeper Alex Cohron off a James Khual deflection in the 22nd minute. His second one came just three minutes into the second half off an assist from Kiza Anzuruni through the middle. Alic took advantage of a bad angle from Cohron to slide the right-footed shot in the back of the net.

“It’s just practice and practicing, that’s it,” Alic said. “He was blocking off the angle and I was surprised I got it through.”

Shutting out the first two opponents on the schedule reassures Ray the Dragons’ defense will be fine with brothers Elocho and Wilondja Ramazani holding down the back line. Now he wants the rest of the field to speed up its development.

“Honestly, I think we’ve played pretty sloppy,” Ray said. “Our midfield isn’t working the ball the right way and movement off the ball is pretty poor. Defensively, we have two incredible athletes that are able to keep us safe back there. I feel like things will get better once we’re organized, but we have a lot to improve on with the start to the season.”

Warren Central hosts Warren East at home Thursday for its second straight district match.

“We just want to come away with a win,” Ray said. “Putting ourselves in position to come away with the No. 1 seed is the most important thing.”

South Warren heads to Lexington this weekend for the Lexington Soccer Showcase.{&end}{&end}