W.F. West needed a pair of goals from Lauren Tornow in the final eight minutes here at Bearcat Stadium on Monday in order to clutch a 3-2 victory from the jaws of defeat.
Those jaws just so happened to belong to the Centralia Tigers as they suffered a gut punch of a loss in the 2A Evergreen Conference rivalry game.
“We did a pretty good job of keeping pressure on them for quite a bit of the game, especially the second half,” said W.F. West coach Allen Anderson. “With the slick surface tonight we just had a few balls squeeze through our defense.”
Those couple of miscues allowed Centralia to hold a lead on two separate occasions. In the 11th minute Kupria Lapierre put the Tigers on the board first with a goal that was set up by a pass from Lucy Nowicki. The game wound up tied before the intermission, though, when Abbey Duffey drilled home a free kick.
Centralia reclaimed the lead in the 64th minute when Alayna Miller notched a goal of her own. That lead did not hold, however, as the Lauren Tornow show began less than ten minutes later.
In the 72nd minute Tornow tied the game up at 2-all with an unassisted goal and then in the 77th minute she put the Bearcats up for good with a goal that was assisted by Courtney Bennett.
“We just kept putting the pressure on them right up until the end. I was just so proud of them to see them come back and get that win against their rival. It was a great way for us to end our league season,” said Anderson. “I was really happy with Lauren and her finishing tonight. Just going hard at the end and creating spacing and putting the ball into the back of the net.”
Anderson added that the game served as senior night for the Bearcats as they honored Bennett, Alida Ellingson, and Shianne Blankenship.
All told, W.F. West outshot Centralia 16-8 in the contest.
Centralia coach Henry Gallanger came away from the rivalry match feeling disheartened, but proud of his players.
“I think the fans got their five dollars worth. It was definitely a back and forth game and I thought our players left it all on the field. I have no complaints,” Gallanger said. “We played hard and we were in it right until the very end. Unfortunately, that’s the way this season as gone a lot of the time.”
W.F. West (7-8-1, 6-4 league) finishes the regular season with the third seed in the 2A Evergreen Conference. They will play the Greater St. Helens League number two seed, Columbia River, on Saturday in Vancouver.
Centralia finishes their season with a 2-14 record overall and a 1-9 record in league.
Note: Aberdeen defeated Rochester 1-0 in Aberdeen to secure the No. 4 spot out of the EvCo into the district tournament.
Beavers Lock Up Playoff Spot After Defeating Hoquiam
HOQUIAM — Tenino’s Lara Kershaw scored two goals and Abby Severse made six saves to help the Beavers to a 2-1 win over Hoquiam in a 1A Evergreen League girls soccer match here on Tuesday.
The win avenges the Beavers’ 2-1 loss to Hoquiam on Oct. 4 in Tenino and secures a playoff spot for the Beavers. Tenino will host Montesano on Thursday for the league title.
“I feel great. I’m just so proud of these girls. We lost to Hoquiam at home, they’re tough for us,” Tenino coach Kevin Schultz said. “They’re a maximum effort team. They play defensive which makes it tough on us and they have the best goalkeeper we’ve faced all season. We got revenge from our loss earlier and we’re in the playoffs.”
Kershaw opened the scoring on an unassisted goal in the 4th minute. Hoquiam’s Sadie Carlyle scored in the 16th minute on an unassisted goal to even the score at halftime.
In the 67th minute, Brieanna Dell fed Kershaw for the go-ahead goal and Severse was solid in the net to secure the win.
Schultz praised the play of Kershaw and Dell, noting Dell was more of a distributor in this game due to the defensive play style of the Grizzlies. He also noted the play of Grace Vestal, bouncing back from an injury this season and using her movement in the middle of the field to find open passing lanes in the seams of the defense.
Tenino (11-3-1, 5-2) hosts the Bulldogs at 7 p.m. on the blacktop in the Stone City.
