Pearl River’s Kevin Dancer scored a pair of goals, none bigger than his second one, in a 5-2 victory over the Salmen Spartans in a district match held Friday at Salmen.

Pearl River (8-5-6, 3-1), winners of six in a row, took a 3-0-first-half lead, but Salmen (1-3 in district) scored a pair of unanswered goals to make it 3-2, five minutes into the second half.

With the momentum on Salmen’s side, Vincent Piazza made a great pass into the open field to Dancer, who outran a defender and scored a backbreaking goal, giving his team a 4-2 lead.

Salmen'€™s Victor Arroyo (8) slides to take a shot, while Pearl River'€™s Adler Tonan (7) defends him during a district match held Friday at Salmen. (Staff Photo by Chris Kinkaid)

Dancer credited his teammates for making good passes that led to the goal.

“It was good communication. Adler (Tonan) initially started it and Vinny played a flick to my voice,” Dancer said.

Pearl River added one more when Piazza took a pass from Ernesto Armador and scored to make it 5-2.

Pearl River coach Bob DeVall said his team is coming together.

“Our guys are having a chemistry that is gelling. We took the ball up the middle of the field with a pass on the run with through passes and stuff. I think that was three of the five passes,” DeVall said.

The first half was action packed. Pearl River began with a few scoring opportunities, but couldn’t get the ball in the net. Dancer had a shot that was saved in the second minute and a corner kick by Will Reed was nearly headed in by Tonan during the fifth minute.

Then Salmen took the ball into the offensive zone and Victor Arroyo took a sliding shot that went wide.

The Rebels got on the board in the 11th minute when Tonan sent a shot into the left part of the goal for the opening tally, which was unassisted.

Nine minutes later, PRHS added another one when Tonan sent a pass downfield to Dancer, who made it 2-0.

Salmen’s Arroyo nearly put his team on the board, but sailed a shot high in the 23rd minute. The Spartans had a golden chance to trim the lead to 2-1 when David Diaz took a shot that was saved. The rebound came out and a Salmen player shot it, but off the left post.

The Rebels went up 3-0 in the 31st minute. From midfield, Reed took a shot that went high into the air. When it landed, it hit off Salmen’s goalkeeper and in for a score.

The Spartans continued to play hard and got to within two as Diaz dribbled up the field and posted a netter inside the right post to make it 3-1 at halftime.

In the second half, Salmen trimmed it to 3-2 when Arroyo took a direct kick. The shot was saved, but the rebound went to Chris Gulino, who scored.

Pearl River’s Dancer thwarted the comeback with a goal as the Rebels went on to win.

Salmen coach Tim Rogers talked about the match.

“We kind of put ourselves in it and then we had a few bad plays, we got out-oppositioned a few times and they capitalized. They did a good job of working their game plan.