Things aren’t getting any easier for the Centralia girls soccer team, which fell 1-0 for the second straight game to open its season — this time to 1A Elma — Thursday at Tiger Stadium.
In fact, they got hard, with a key piece already out for a long time.
“We’re still trying to figure things out,” head coach Noel Vasquez said. “We lost Jaslin Corona for eight weeks with a broken collarbone in our last game, so trying to adapt and find a true forward is going to take us a minute or two.”
The Eagles put nine shots on Liliana Babka; the senior keeper saved eight of them, but allowed the go-ahead goal in the 50th minute when Elma sprung a counterattack after inviting and absorbing pressure from the Tigers to start the second half.
Centralia, meanwhile, but four shots on frame, despite controlling possession better than it did in its opener against 3A River Ridge.
“We moved the ball a lot better,” Vasquez said. “We’re still trying to find rhythm, and we’re still trying to put together the system that I’m trying to implement. But the ball movement was a lot better, we were more consistent with the idea of what we wanted to do. We just weren’t able to finish the play.”
The Tigers are still looking for their first goal of the season, 160 minutes into the young fall.
Centralia (0-2) will get another home game against a 1A side Saturday, when it hosts Montesano at Tiger Stadium.
