TENINO — After losing the Battle of the Blacktop title game to Tenino over the summer, the Bearcats and former Tenino head coach Kevin Schultz wanted to come in and put their best foot forward on Thursday.
It didn’t take long for the Bearcats to get rolling, as Jaelynn Fuentes’ 10th-minute goal opened the scoring in a 3-0 W.F. West victory.
“It’s nice to come back with a win,” Schultz, the current W.F. West coach, said with a smile.
The Bearcats hadn’t played this week prior to Thursday’s game, and they used the extra preparation time wisely.
Schultz said that the focus this week in practice was the movement of their front three players, and he was pleased to see that that movement opened up several scoring opportunities.
“I thought we did that really well,” Schultz said. “Our off ball movement was much better.”
W.F. West took advantage early, as Ashlen Gruginski set up Fuentes on the game’s first goal, and Fuentes returned the favor by assisting Gruginski’s goal in the 25th minute to make it 2-0. Fuentes found the back of the net just three minutes into the second half to up the lead to three.
“Jaelynn was just dangerous,” Schultz said. “I thought she was the player of the game.”
The Beavers were able to bounce back as the second half went along, generating a few chances of their own in the attacking third, but they weren’t able to get on the scoreboard before the final whistle.
“The adjustments were pretty good, but credit to those guys,” Tenino coach Dave Montgomery said. “Both of our styles are based on ‘let’s hold on to the ball,’ and they were able to do that better tonight.”
Montgomery commended his midfielders, who battled harder in the midfield in the second half and were able to flip those wins into chances.
The Beavers (3-2-1) have one more non-conference test, as they’ll host Toledo on Monday, and Montgomery isn’t opposed to using an old friend for advice on how to adjust moving forward.
“It’s kinda nice that (Schultz and I) have a good rapport and we’re non-league opponents,” Montgomery said. “There’s gonna be some really good film for us on this one … That’s gonna be really fun to continue those conversations after this one.”
The Bearcats (3-1-0) also have one final non-league test coming up, as they will head south to take on Battle Ground on Monday.
Schultz simply hopes that W.F. West can continue to build on what it accomplished on Thursday.
“We were able to come in with our whole team and put a really good team performance together,” Schultz said. “And that’s what we were looking to accomplish.”
