Bearcats Hand T-Birds First League Loss in Four Years

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Playing in its fourth shootout this season, W.F. West came up big to earn a 1-0 shootout victory in PKs over visiting Tumwater and hand the Thunderbirds their first league loss since 2018 on Tuesday in 2A Evergreen Conference play.

It was W.F. West coach Allen Anderson’s first win against the Thunderbirds since he took over as head coach four years ago — and a big-time rebound for a Bearcats’ team that was coming off two losses last week.

The Bearcats first lost to Rochester on April 19, then Centralia on Friday in PKs, followed by another loss to the Tigers in special PKs to determine The Chronicle Cup. It would be easy for any team to be discouraged after a week like that. Not this squad.

“We had a rough week last week and were dealing with some adversity with some guys out,” Anderson said. “But we didn’t hang our heads.”

Instead, the Bearcats stymied a powerhouse Thunderbirds team that only has non-league losses this season to Class 4A and 3A teams.

“This is the exact thing we were hoping for this week,” Anderson said. “Everyone knows Tumwater hasn’t lost a league game in (four) years… the boys dominated both sides of the field. We were aggressive on our front foot all night.”



The Bearcats were playing in their first home game in three and a half weeks — since before spring break. It didn’t matter as W.F. West outshot Tumwater 10-5, playing to a 0-0 stalemate through overtime.

That set up Bearcat keeper Hayden Sciera’s clutch performance in PKs, making three big-time saves to secure the win.

“Hayden played out of his mind,” Anderson said. “We needed this. Everybody played so stinkin’ well tonight. “

Anderson also praised the play of Xavier Flores, Adrian Jaimes, Gideon Priest and Cody Pennington.

W.F. West (6-4 EvCo) is currently in third place in the EvCo and heads to Class 1A La Center for a non-league match on Thursday.