ADNA — It’s been nearly a month since the Onalaska Loggers have seen a ball kicked through their net.
Since falling 1-0 to Napavine on Sept. 18, the Loggers have won six straight, all via shutout, with the latest coming on the road at Adna 2-0 Wednesday. In their six-game winning streak, they’ve outscored their opponents 37-0, with 16 of those goals coming from senior Kaiyah Sandridge.
The midfielder’s scoring run has helped Onalaska cruise to comfortable wins over the past four weeks coming into Wednesday’s match. But in a Central 2B League showdown against the Pirates, her 57th-minute sneaker past Adna keeper Lillian Montat gave the Loggers a comfortable 2-0 margin that it would not relinquish.
The defense, anchored by keeper Emily Hicks, did the rest to keep Onalaska unbeaten in league play at 6-0. The Loggers’ winning streak is technically at seven games due to Winlock forfeiting its Oct. 20 matchup in Onalaska.
“We’re pretty excited to be undefeated in league. We still have two tough games coming up though, so we don’t want to get too excited about being undefeated until we’re done,” Onalaska head coach Christopher Van Clifford said. “This was our first real 2B test to play Adna. We knew they’d be a lot faster and a lot more controlled.”
Both of Onalaska’s goals came from senior midfielders, as Randi Haight set the tone early for the visitors with a goal in the sixth minute. Adna’s fielders struggled for most of the first half to move the ball against stout defenders like Reese Marshall and Ady Rimmereid. But the Pirates did have multiple close shots around the 27-minute mark, including a free kick that snuck past Hicks but was collected before it crawled any closer to the net.
Another chance to tie the game for Adna came just after halftime as Haley Roundtree penetrated the defense and reached the box, but she couldn’t convert. The Pirates recorded six shots on goal but came up empty. Montat, with 10 saves on Onalaska’s 12 shots, put up a valiant performance to keep the Loggers from running up the scoreboard for the sixth straight game.
“I think we knew what to take care of. It’s when we were doing it or not doing it, and we had some mental lapses,” Adna head coach Patrick Richardson said of Adna’s defensive game plan. “But I think, overall, we limited them pretty well. We gave up a few shots late that we shouldn’t have given up. Lillian is pretty clutch in goal, so it’s nice to have that to save us a little bit.”
Onalaska’s winning streak followed a tough non-league stretch where it lost five straight matches to start the season, including an 8-0 thumping by Tumwater. Van Clifford watched the film of that game closely and inspired his team to mirror the offensive intensity the T-Birds played with in their matchup on Sept. 9.
“We’re kind of a different team than we were when we played in the preseason. Once we got rolling in the league, we’ve really picked up the pace on offense,” he said. “The challenge in most games at higher levels is getting goals. You can pack it in and keep people from scoring, but if you want to win, you’ve got to score. It gave us a lot of motivation to get organized on offense. Probably the most important game we played was Tumwater. They just ran all over us, but we kind of modeled what we do after how they played on offense.”
Onalaska (7-5, 6-0 C2BL) is 6-0 to start league play for the second straight campaign. A loss to Napavine kept the Loggers from securing a league title last fall, but the Loggers have a chance to control their destiny this season as they get another crack at the Tigers (6-3-2, 3-0-1 C2BL) on Oct. 22 in Napavine. Following a trip to Ilwaco on Oct. 27, Onalaska will finish the regular season at home against Toledo on Oct. 29.
Adna (4-6-2, 4-2 C2BL) has a much busier finish to the regular season as it will make a trek east to face Tonasket on Friday and Brewster on Saturday before returning home to face Napavine on Monday, Oct. 20. The Pirates also recently scheduled a home contest against Lopez Island on Saturday, Oct. 25 due to Winlock forfeiting the Oct. 29 matchup.
