TENINO — The Tenino girls soccer team’s postseason aspirations took a hit Tuesday with a 1-0 loss in 1A Evergreen play to Eatonville, as the Cruisers’ defense and a continuous deluge kept the Beavers from putting much of anything together offensively.
The weather flipped back and forth between a light drizzle and a steady rain throughout warmups and into the match’s first minutes, but early in the first half it began to pour, and only got harder as the half went on.
“We’re a team that wants to pass the ball around quite a bit,” Tenino coach Dave Montgomery said. “We practice a lot on this turf, but we haven’t had too many days like this … This is kind of the first time we’ve had to play in something like this, and pretty much every long pass went extra-long, every medium pass went long and every short pass went medium.”
The Cruisers couldn’t manage much more themselves in a back-and-forth opening half that was full of sprints across the midfield line but short on any chances actually materializing.
That never really changed, but in the 60th minute, the Beavers (7-5-1, 1-3-0 1A Evergreen) were whistled for a handball just inside the box, and Eatonville put its penalty kick home for the only goal it would need.
“We’re not entirely convinced that that was a handball in the box,” Montgomery said. “We’ll have to watch the video later.”
The Cruisers outshot the Beavers 6-2, and even though the rain began to lessen as the second half wound to a close, Tenino just couldn’t find the passes needed to get into any sort of dangerous position. The Beavers earned a pair of corner kicks late, along with a few deep throw-ins that were sent long into the box, but Eatonville’s numbers kept the hosts from getting so much as a shot toward goal.
“They came out in a 5-3-2 shell and parked the bus and made it hard for us,” Montgomery said. “They weren’t super interested in making a lot of opportunities for themselves, but were going to try to maximize their opportunities.”
The loss puts the Beavers a game out of the 1A Evergreen’s third and final district tournament spot, with one game left against each of the other four teams in the league. They’ll start the stretch run Thursday, back at home against Montesano.
