The Tenino girls soccer team got knocked out of the 1A District 4 tournament in the first round Tuesday, losing to Seton Catholic 2-1 in Vancouver in a tightly-contested matchup.
The Beavers, the No. 3 seed out of the 1A Evergreen, had to go on the road to take the 1A TriCo’s second-place squad, which came into the match well over .500 with a high-powered offense.
“We bunkered in and decided that we would absorb a bunch of pressure from them,” head coach Dave Montgomery said. “They’re a team that likes to press really high, so we absorbed that pressure and got the ball up field to challenge their back line.”
The plan kept the game locked up early, before Seton broke the deadlock in the 36th minute. But before the Cougars could blink, the Beavers were on them, winning a corner that Kami Oliveira swung in to Paisley Garcia, who put it home to tie the game right back up.
That was the way things stood at halftime, and for 10 minutes after the break, before the hosts got the decisive goal off of a rebound in the 51st.
Tenino’s defensive-minded gameplan yielded the shot advantage, but Beaver keeper Trinity Tafoya played a huge role in leveling the scales, coming up with 15 saves on 25 total shots.
“She had a fantastic game in goal,” Montgomery said. “Our defense played really well; every shot that they had was contested. When you’re contesting every shot, you’re not able to fire it as hard or place it as well. Trinity is always positioned well and was able to get almost everything.
The loss ends the season for the Beavers, who come out of 2022 with a 5-10-1 overall record.
The Beavers will graduate seven seniors: Tafoya, Oliveira, Cheyenne Rossow, Elizabeth Disken, Rilee Jones, Nicole Fralick, and Paige Pearson. Montgomery also shouted out his assistant Trevor Fetbrandt for helping him out in his first year as the head man on the Black Top.
“They can definitely hold their heads up high with what they’ve put in this year,” Montgomery said of his seniors. “Some of them I’ve been a coach for six years and it’s been a real pleasure to work with them.”
