Last spring, the Black Hills boys soccer team won just one of its 12 league games.
In a jamboree at Tiger Stadium a few weeks ago, Black Hills coach Jackie Zvirzdys Wood said that the goal was simple: The Wolves wanted to win more this season, especially in league play.
Black Hills won its league opener against Centralia in that same stadium on Tuesday, defeating the Tigers 3-2 in PKs.
“I’m so stoked,” Zvirzdys Wood said. “They’ve come so far … Compared to where we were last year to where we are starting our season this year is pretty awesome. Now we just have to continue to do it.”
The Wolves struck almost instantly, as Ethan Badger scored in the fourth minute of the game. Centralia’s Alan Vasquez responded with a goal of his own in the 13th minute, and the 1-1 scoreline held until the halftime whistle.
As the game got deeper into the second half, Centralia coach Noel Vazquez opted to get more aggressive to try and win the game in regulation.
“We were getting a little bit greedy,” Vazquez said. “We tried to push as many people forward as we could.”
The Wolves took advantage. In the 78th minute, they had the numbers in transition, and Centralia’s Andres Mejia-Ceja took a foul that prevented a scoring chance. He was given a red card as a result, leaving the Tigers with 10 men for the remainder of the match.
Badger sank the ensuing free kick to give Black Hills a 2-1 lead with just minutes to play.
The same aggressiveness that led to the Tigers conceding paid off in those final minutes, though, as Christian Luis headed home a corner kick to tie the game at two in stoppage time.
After a scoreless 10-minute extra time period, it came down to PKs. The Wolves sank all five of their shots, while Centralia’s fifth shot rattled off the post to end the game.
Zvirzdys Wood was so nervous that she didn’t even see the last kick.
“I literally had my hands on my head and I was looking at the ground,” Zvirzdys Wood said.
She was quick to credit her midfielders — Gavin Sugarman, Luke Grunenfelder, Baabo Ba, and Roberto Aguiniga — saying that their ability to control the pace of the game has been crucial to their early season turnaround.
“They kind of hold us down,” Zvirzdys Wood said. “We’ve been really working on moving the ball around, and the boys do a great job of that.”
Vazquez was proud of the way the Tigers battled back, but said that games like that show that they need to come out with more intensity from the opening kickoff.
“They showed that they’re always willing to pick themselves up out of a situation,” Vazquez said. “Unfortunately, in PKs, it becomes 50-50. It just happened to go the other way.”
Centralia (3-2, 0-1 2A EvCo) will be back on the Tiger Stadium turf on Friday to host Tumwater.
“I know it’s gonna be another hard game,” Vazquez said. “But we’re hungry to get this win back, and we’re gonna do everything we can to get into the win column.”
Black Hills (3-2-2, 1-0 2A EvCo) will return home to its own turf to face Aberdeen on Thursday.
“I’m so excited for (the rest of) league,” Zvirzdys Wood said. “We got a really strong league so it’ll be a ton of fun. I have a feeling it will be pretty close a lot of the time, which makes it even more exciting.”
