Staff photo / Preston Byers Warren G. Harding’s Zander Thornton (15) and West Branch’s Gavin Clemens battle for the ball during the Warriors’ win on Tuesday.

WARREN — In a meeting of two teams with seasons going opposite directions, undefeated West branch dominated winless Warren G. Harding 7-0 on Tuesday at Mollenkopf Stadium in Warren.

The Warriors scored five goals in the first half and a pair in the second en route to their most lopsided victory of their season so far.

“I thought we played a really good game,” West Branch coach Sam Martucci said. “Movement was good. They came to play today, and I felt we got the job done.”

Harding, which has been on the wrong end of several wide defeats this year, hung tough for the first 15 minutes of Tuesday’s match. Although West Branch controlled possession early, the Raiders defense managed to limit the opportunities the Warriors had at their goal. However, an unforced error by the backline opened the proverbial door for Gavin Clemens, who easily slipped the ball past goalkeeper Doug Pleacher for the first goal of the game.

From there, Harding had a rough time slowing down the Warriors.

Kasen Weaver added West Branch’s second goal two and half minutes after the first, while Clemens scored again not long after to put the Warriors ahead 3-0. WB scored twice more before the end of the half to enter halftime with a commanding five-goal lead.

“Once we get to a point where we panic, I think we tend to regress to where we are playing kickball instead of soccer,” Harding coach Tilden Tatebe said. “Even though we emphasize in training, we emphasize in the game, it’s an experience thing, so they’re just going to have to fight through. We have a lot of young guys, a lot of inexperience. Even though we’ve got some older guys on the team, the seniors don’t have a lot of experience playing at this level.

“Once we get to a point where we are under pressure, we panic and we revert to things that they know we shouldn’t do. They all know, but they’re not executing.”

In the second half, Tatebe admitted West Branch “took it easy” on the Raiders. The Warriors scored twice more before clearing its bench up 7-0.

Still, Tatebe saw some good things from the final 40 minutes.

“We tried some things differently in the second half,” Tatebe said. “We had a different tactic, and we tried to inspire them to do better. We wanted to minimize the scoring and then try to create some chances. The chances weren’t great, but I think our defensive strategy was a little bit stronger as we challenged them.”

Harding (0-4) has more than a week off before its next game. The Raiders are scheduled to host Warren JFK on Sept. 4.

Tatebe plans to make full use of the time off from matches to get back to basics.

“We’re going to take a look back, we’re going to look at film, we’re going to study a little bit like we always have. But we’re gonna just hone in on the fundamentals. That’s what we have to do. If we clean up some of the stuff — I mean, we put teams under pressure and then they panic, but we get to a point where we crack and then once it cracks, it’s a floodgate.”

West Branch (4-0), which has outscored opponents 18-1 this year, faces Boardman at home on Thursday in what Martucci described as a “real test to where” the Warriors are at this point in the season.