Northampton scored two goals in the first six minutes then two more late in Wednesday evening’s match at King’s Fork to hand the Bulldog boys soccer team a rough 4-0 defeat as the Bulldogs (2-2-1) close in on the Southeastern District portion of their season in less than a week.

The Bulldogs are trying to adjust their game on the fly after starting the season in fine fashion.

King’s Fork opened the season with a 3-0 win at Green Run and a 3-1 win over Heritage in KF’s home opener.

After the great start, head coach Mark Parsons lost three players, all three being multi-season varsity veterans. Parsons dismissed two players for “team infractions” and the third player was taken off the team by his parents.

With a 1-0 loss to Granby, one of the top teams in the Eastern District, and a draw against Lake Taylor, the 4-0 setback to the Yellow Jackets was KF’s toughest outing since the losses.

“It’s unfortunate, mainly because that’s a lot of development over the last few years down the drain,” said Parsons.

The Eastern Shore squad took their attack right at the Bulldogs to gain the lead, needing only a few seconds to test Bulldog goalie Corey Jefferson with two shots before going up 1-0 on the third shot on goal on 1:31 into action. Northampton made it 2-0 5:42 in.

King’s Fork was able to settle Northampton’s offense down through the rest of the first half and had a couple brief chances to get back within a goal.

Sophomore forward Bo Lawrence had a couple dangerous sprints forward but couldn’t turn one into a good strike on goal.

Central midfielder Kyle Beckett’s shot from outside the center of the Northampton box was hit well, but straight at the Yellow Jacket goalie.

The Bulldogs took more of the play into the Northampton end through the first 12 minutes of the second half.

Instead of the Bulldogs finding a way to get back within a goal and perhaps bring up an exciting finish, Northampton regained the momentum and piled many shots on the KF goal over the closing minutes. The Yellow Jackets scored with 25 minutes left and with six minutes left.

“We’re having to try some new things. Tonight, for instance, we tried having a couple of our usual defenders play more offensive positions and it just didn‘t work tonight,” Parsons said.

The Bulldogs start Southeastern District play Tuesday night at Deep Creek. Thanks to two postponements because of rain, KF’s schedule is no longer neatly divided into non-district then Southeastern District, but eight of KF’s 10 remaining matches are district contests.