TENINO — W.F. West may have been the defending Battle on the Blacktop champions. And Kevin Schultz may have helped start the whole tournament five years ago — and proceed to win it twice with Tenino. But neither the Bearcats nor Schultz — now at the helm in Chehalis — ever had anything to show for their summer successes.
That changed late Sunday night, when the W.F. West Crimson squad downed La Center 1-0, and this time got to lift a trophy for their efforts.
“We came here, we knew the goal was to defend the championship,” Schultz said. “They played well.”
Lauren Kelley scored the match’s lone goal late in the first half, off of turnover in the attacking third, curling a low shot around the La Center keeper caught a bit too far off her line.
“We’ve got players that can press, we can press on the opponent’s half of the field,” Schultz said. “We knew they were going to try to play it short, and we were able to pressure them and create the turnover.”
Kelley finished the tournament with three goals, and earned overall MVP honors when Dave Montgomery and the Tenino staff running the tournament handed out post-tournament awards.
Meanwhile, Staysha Fuetsch and the W.F. West defense pitched their third consecutive shutout.
The W.F. West Crimson side finished the weekend undefeated, beating Shelton 3-2 on Friday before beating Tenino 1-0 and drawing 0-0 with Napavine on Saturday.
On the other side, the Bearcats’ Gray team fell to Centralia 1-0 to start its run, tied Eatonville 1-1, and lost to La Center 3-0, before losing to Shelton in a shootout after a 0-0 tie in a Sunday consolation.
“They’re starting to see how the formation works and how it can work for us,” Schultz said. “It was good for us, for both teams. I know the (Gray) team didn’t end up winning any games, but the other team was a little younger, and for those girls to compete with varsities … we saw good stuff from them.”
Centralia ended its tournament run in decisive fashion, beating Napavine 4-0 in the third-place matchup.
The 2A Tigers led 2-0 at halftime on a pair of Alia Gomez goals — one assisted by Jaslin Corona and the other by Olivia Gruginski — and added two more in the second half on an own goal and an Ana Blankenship tally.
After beating the Gray Bearcats, Centralia lost 1-0 to La Center and drew 0-0 with Eatonville, and ultimately finished 2-1-1 on the weekend.
“It was a good tournament,” said first-year Centralia coach Luis Magana Reyna. “Unfortunately with the results yesterday, we weren’t able to make it to the final, but I told the girls ‘Let’s finish off strong, let’s get the highest possible place we can in this tournament,’ and I was proud of that.”
Come the beginning of the new week, every program will enter the dead period at the beginning of August, with no on-ball team activities allowed for three weeks.
Tenino is set to open its season on Sept. 2 at Chelan. Centralia will start Sept. 5, at home against River Ridge, the same day that Napavine faces Eatonville, and W.F. West, ironically, opens against La Center.
“There’s lots of stuff for us to work on, but it was a good first step,” Schultz said. “And it was fun for me, my first real thing with them, to end summer with a win.”
