Fort Scott's Griffin Hulbert keeps tack of Independence's Ryan Hayes (21) during the first half of Southeast Kansas League play at Ellis Park Thursday afternoon. Hayes assisted on one of Indy's goals as the Tigers fell to the defending Class 4-3-2-1A State champion, 7-0. (Scott Nuzum/Tribune photo)

A soccer match with Independence has to be looked at differently than one against anyone else.

Since soccer became a Southeast Kansas League-sanctioned sport in 2002, the Independence program has won at least a share of all but one championship. And last season, the Bulldogs became just the second soccer program from outside any of Kansas' metropolitan areas -- McPherson is the other -- to win a State soccer title when it won Class 4-3-2-1A.

"Indy's definitely the class of the league," Fort Scott head coach David Gray said. "They run-ruled us (won by a 10-goal margin) every time last year. They didn't do that this year, so that's improvement."

The Tigers (2-3 in the SEK, 2-5-1 overall) were also without their starting goalkeeper, Grant Wells, due to an injury and their leading goal scorer, Josh Buller, who had a bruised foot. No. 2 scorer Chris McAllister wasn't quite at full speed yet coming back from an injury himself.

"Jesse played really well," Gray said. "We didn't know until (Wednesday) that Grant was going to be out a week or so. Jesse hasn't been practicing much in goal but he did a real good job starting against the defending State champs."

Brown faced 32 shots, 18 of which were on goal. He managed to turn away 11 of them.

Chase Cushing scored three goals for Independence (2-0, 6-1), the first one coming in the fourth minute of play. Tyler Sprague knocked in a rebound in the 21st minute and Garrett Webster headed one in in the 29th.

"We had a lot of hustle in the beginning," Gray said. "We hung with them as well as we could for a while. We only had 18 healthy people to start with."

Cushing scored the first two goals of the second half, just about 30 seconds apart.

The Tigers wrap up a week in which they will play four games with a Saturday trip to Paola.

JUNIOR VARSITY -- Fort Scott and Independence fought to a 3-3 draw in the JV contest. Andy Cowlishaw took an assist from Matt Scharenberg for the Tigers' first goal. Brown sailed one in from beyond the midfield stripe for the second to give them a 2-0 lead after just eight minutes.

Indy tied it by halftime. But Kenny Withers put the Tigers ahead with about three minutes to go. The Bulldogs salvaged the tie just over a minute later.

Kai Simmons-Mims started in goal and made two saves in the first half. Buller -- who didn't have to rely so much on his bruised foot -- was the keeper in the second half made one save.

Goalkeepers

In -- Wes Goodrich (2 saves). FS -- Jesse Brown (11 saves).

Scoring

In -- Cushing (unassisted), 4th min.

In -- Sprague (unassisted), 21st min.

In -- Webster (Byrd), 29th min.

In -- Cushing 2 (Hayes), 47th min.

In -- Cushing 3 (unassisted), 47th min.

In -- Thomas (unassisted), 76th min.

In -- Ferguson, free kick, 79th min.