JOHNSON, Vt. – The Castleton men's soccer team jumped out to a quick lead and never looked back on Tuesday afternoon, defeating Johnson St. in a North Atlantic Conference match by a final score of 7-1 at Minaert Field.

Castleton improves its record to 5-8-2 on the season with the victory and improves to 5-2 in NAC play. Johnson St. is now 2-12 overall and 1-7 in the NAC after the loss.

Jack Kingdon had a career day for the Spartans, scoring three times and adding an assist in the victory. Four other Spartans tallied goals in the contest.

For Johnson St., Dominic Caforia tallied its lone goal on an assist from Patrick Miller.  Gerrit Lane faced 12 shots in the contest, stopping five of them.

Castleton opened the scoring in the 10th minute when Kingdon netted an unassisted goal to give his team a 1-0 edge. That lead was doubled to 2-0 just two minutes later, when Kingdon set up Fidele Rutayisire for his sixth goal of the season. The Badgers cut into the lead at the 14-minute mark, as Caforia got his team on the board with a header. The 2-1 score held nearly to the half, but Seth Wilmott found his second goal of the season in the 43rd minute to give Castleton a 3-1 edge going into the break.

After the half, the Spartans continued to control play, scoring four times over the final 45 minutes. Kingdon continued his strong day, scoring just 22 seconds into the second half for the Spartans. He capped his hat trick when he was set up by Paul Phillips in the 52nd minute to make it 5-1 in favor of the visitors.

The Spartans rattled off one last pair of quick goals, as Josh Mathews and Andrew Meister scored in the 65th and 69th minutes, respectively, to give the game its final score of 7-1.

Castleton held a 22-5 edge in total shots, including a 16-1 edge in shots on goal. The Spartans took eight corner kicks, while Johnson received none in the contest.

Castleton resumes play on Saturday when it travels to Husson for a key conference matchup at 2:30 p.m.