The BYU men’s soccer team took 55 minutes to find the net against the Pali Blues Saturday night in Provo, but once they did, they scored four more times in the next 30 minutes and ended up with a 5-1 victory.

“We’ve been a second-half team all season,” said Cougar coach Chris Watkins. “We just keep pushing hard, and when the other team runs out of gas, that’s when we find our openings. It’s been our calling card this year.”

The start of the match was delayed twice, once because of Pali’s late arrival, and then again because of lightning.

However, despite the damp weather and late hour, there was a big, enthusiastic crowd on hand to cheer BYU on.

The Cougars dominated possession throughout the contest and had several good opportunities to get shots off in the first half, but they weren’t able to convert.

“Sometimes we struggle to finish,” the coach said. “But, when we talked at halftime, we said the goals are coming. Our attack was very good today.” For the season, BYU has netted four times more scores in the second period as compared to the first.

Cougar midfielder Jace Green and forward Garrett Gee pushed especially hard at the beginning, but it was Blake Frischknecht’s night to make things happen as he tallied three assists for the evening.

The BYU attack finally got jump-started on a set play. Midfielder Romy Lakip took a corner kick and defender Alex Neff made the conversion to give the home squad a 1-0 advantage with 35 minutes to play.

Attacking defender Douglas Clark was very active on the left wing throughout the contest and made his pressure pay off when he took a feed from Frischknecht in for a second goal 13 minutes after the first one.

Frischknecht made his next assist less than six minutes later, with forward Bryson Pope putting it in the net from the right side.

Eight minutes after that, he got his third by passing to Jonathan Junca, who outmaneuvered the Pali keeper to hit the target.

Matt Rider completed the tally for the Cougars in the 86th minute with an unassisted effort from the left side to make it 5-0.

It looked like goalie Jake Petersen was going to notch a shutout, but in stoppage time, the Blues were awarded a penalty kick and used that chance to finally get onto the scoreboard.

Nevertheless, the coach was pleased with how his team performed in this contest. “I’m really happy with how we’re playing right now,” Watkins concluded.

Beky Beaton can be reached at bbeaton@heraldextra.com.