It took Guilford less than four minutes to get on the board Thursday in a nonconference match at DeKalb.

The Barbs were able to keep things at a one-goal deficit for a while, but the Vikings exploded for four more in an 11-minute stretch during the first half and rolled to a 7-0 win.

“The first goal, it was a downer, but at least we didn’t let it bury us,” said DeKalb assistant coach Dave Lichamer, a longtime soccer coach at Sycamore. “We didn’t want to go down early. No one wants to go down early.

“We fought back, kept it there, but we were still giving the ball up way, way, way too much.”

DeKalb coach P.J. Hamilton declined to comment after the game.

Entering Thursday, three of the four losses for the Barbs (4-6) were by two goals or less. This was their biggest loss of the year after a 7-1 loss to Naperville North on Sept. 9.

Reed Suddeth opened the scoring for the Vikings (8-1-1) with 36:09 left in the first half. His shot initially seemed to be stuffed by freshman goalie Yair de la Cruz, but the ball got away from him and slowly rolled in for a goal.

The Vikings didn’t score again for almost 20 minutes despite controlling possession. Andrew Bachta connected in the 22nd minute, then five minutes after that Edwin Hernandez scored.

Juan Martinez capped the first-half scoring in the 33rd minute, pushing the lead to 5-0.

“That’s kind of the way we’ve been,” said first-year Guilford head coach Dave Bachta, who spent 18 years at Sycamore. “They’ve come in cycles like that where we’ve scored one, then we have a little bit of a lull, and then we have three in five minutes or something like that.”

The Vikings added two goals in the final 24 minutes to push the final to 7-0.

After switching to de la Cruz in goal after the Naperville North loss, the Barbs had given up four goals in the three games since - wins against Harlem and Freeport last week and a loss to Waubonsie Valley on Tuesday.

DeKalb had a couple of scoring opportunities early in the second half but were turned away. Mauricio Jasso had a solid look but Lizandro Pina made the save in the 42nd minute.

Mitchell Farias had a nice give-and-go to Jorge Correa five minutes later, but the ball sped past Correa before he could catch up to it.

Lichamer said the team was playing with more swagger early in the second half. He said the team had been playing well lately but struggled immensely in the first half.

“We’ve seen some games where emotionally we were at a nice high point in the season. Coming off playing Harlem, we had a great, hard-fought, good victory. We were very high on the season. We were buying in. To come crashing down, it’s hard on you. It’s hard on players mentally. So we need to show some toughness and bounce back.”

The Barbs fell to 2-2 against teams from the NIC-10 with three games remaining, including Saturday at Auburn.

Dave Bachta was the head boys coach at Sycamore for eight years, stepping down in 2021. He said he wasn’t sure he was going to get back into coaching before the opportunity came along at Guilford.

Thursday was his first time back in DeKalb County as a head boys soccer coach.

“I really enjoy coaching against P.J. He’s so good,” Dave Bachta said. “He’s a special coach. He does a really, really good job with the kids. I always like coaching against friends.”