Iowa City West rolls past Sioux City West (photo gallery)

DES MOINES - If you're a soccer player, 60s beat 90s. In a weird way, wet sometimes trumps dry, too.

Iowa City West's Steve Kim (15, right) takes the ball out of the corner past Sioux City West's Jose Vasquez (18) in the second half of their Class 3A quarterfinal game at the state soccer tournament on Thursday, May 31, 2012, at Cownie Soccer Complex in Des Moines. Norwalk won a shootout.(Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

At least it seemed to Thursday for the Iowa City West Trojans.

"I think this is the first time we've ever played in rain here in Des Moines," West Coach Brad Stiles said after his club's 8-0 stomping of Sioux City West in a Class 3A state tournament quarterfinal at soggy Cownie Park. "So that brought a little different element. The players just like to play in the rain, I think."

Senior striker Alex Troester said that might actually be true.

"The ball skips, so the passes come in faster and all that stuff," he said. "You can get things accomplished that way. Personally, I love playing in the rain, just because you can get some scrappy goals. We'll take this weather over 95 degrees any day."

They'll take the way they played, too. Top-seeded West (19-1) got two goals from Troester in the first 13 minutes and took a 3-0 halftime lead, scoring five more times in the second half (four in the first 6:37) to allow reserves to get lot of state tourney playing time.

Troester's first goal came in the third minute. Talk about lightning on a rainy day.

"Yeah, you can tell (scoring early) takes it out of them," said Troester, West's leading scorer with 18 goals. "You can also tell that you've got confidence that you put one away early and you don't have to worry about 'Oh, when is the first one going to come?' Then just to know that we scored and kept attacking was important, too."

The Trojans kept attacking and kept attacking, simply overwhelming their outmanned opponent. Bryton Ostler also had a pair of goals for West, which play Ames (18-2-1) in a Friday afternoon semifinal.

The other goals were scored by Tim Fleagle, Mueng Sunday and Marco Cacho. Sioux City West (12-8) also had an own goal.

"I thought the intensity coming out of the halftime was excellent," Stiles said. "An early goal always helps the cause. The starters were ready."

"We understand that we need to put this game past us," Troester said. "Don't celebrate too much. We've got a big one coming up tomorrow."