Two late goals turned a close match into a bit wider of a final, but the W.F. West girls soccer team was left not entirely unhappy by a 3-0 loss to Tumwater at home on Tuesday.
“Despite the 3-0 score, I thought it was probably our best game of the year,” Bearcats coach Allen Anderson said.
The Bearcats kept the Thunderbirds off the scoreboard for 20 minutes, before Ava Jones broke the deadlock to make it 1-0.
The score would stay that way for 45 minutes, into halftime and well beyond it, before the Tumwater offense could get make its second mark of the day. When it did, the goal came from Lucy Bergford in the 67th, and opened a bit of a floodgate, as Jones came right back six minutes later for her second goal to increase the lead to 3-0.
In spite of the final scoreline, Anderson came out of the match happy with the way his side had played, particularly on defense.
“The girls were staying organized a lot better tonight,” he said. “We just had a lot higher energy and were applying pressure to them as quickly as we could, trying to force them to play backwards and make mistakes… I am really happy about seeing the growth and seeing our girls continuing to get better.”
Tumwater (4-0-2, 3-0-0 2A EvCo) is set to go to Shelton on Thursday, while W.F. West (2-4-0, 1-2-0 2A EvCo) will go to Centralia.
