The Centralia and W.F. West girls soccer teams took their turns beating 1A Eatonville on Tuesday at Tiger Stadium in a summer get-together, before facing up to each other in an inconsequential-but-never-meaningless scrimmage against each other.
The Tigers downed the Cruisers 2-0, before W.F. West’s younger players won 1-0 over the 1A team. Then it was time for the main event, the first coaching showdown between Centralia’s Luis Magana Reyna and W.F. West’s Kevin Schultz, which ended in a 1-1 draw after 30 minutes. Both skippers focused on what else is new to their respective teams. Magana Reyna put out a starting lineup entirely of incoming freshmen, throwing them into the fire quickly.
“I wanted to see how they would react,” he said. “I know it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s still a rivalry match. They responded well.”
On the other side, Schultz has been trying to implement a new formation for the Bearcats, with just over a month left to work out the kinks.
“I think we continued to see that it has potential for us, it’s just kind of pushing the players outside their comfort zone,” he said. “But I think it fits the skills we have.”
W.F. West took an early lead when Zoey Robertson cleaned up a spilled ball off a shot from outside the box, and tapped it in at the back post. Toward the end of the period, Centralia equalized in similar fashion, with a corner kick working its way into a scrum in front of the net, before Anna Blankenship hammered it home from close range.
Both Centralia and W.F. West will be at Tenino’s Battle on the Blacktop this weekend.
