TUMWATER — Black Hills left the field frustrated after 40 minutes on Friday.
The Wolves maintained possession throughout most of the first half and had several chances to get on the board, but they trailed by two against Centralia.
Black Hills coach Jordan Owen didn’t change much at the break, instead opting to give her team a simple message.
“Etch-a-sketch your brain and move on to the next play,” Owen said. “Play with intensity, but don’t let the emotions get ahead of us or control us. Play level, and play our game.”
The Wolves kept the pressure up, tied the game within 15 minutes, and eventually won 3-2 after winning the penalty shootout 4-3.
“I am so proud,” Owen said. “It is not an easy thing to go into halftime down 2-0 and then come back, play to our level, and dig ourselves out of that hole to even it out. I couldn’t be prouder.”
Black Hills got on the board just three minutes into the second half, when Ella Jarmin sank a penalty kick that was the result of a hand ball in the box.
The senior midfielder calmly stepped up and delivered from the spot, and she would go on to do the same as Black Hills’ first shooter in the penalty shootout.
“That’s exactly what they needed, and that’s the exact player I would have wanted to get it,” Owen said. “When she’s confident and playing intensely, it turns around our whole game … It just was an instant spark.”
Emma Grunenfelder tied the game in the 55th minute, floating a looping shot over the Centralia keeper’s outstretched arms.
Over the final 25 minutes of regulation and 10-minute OT period, the closest chance for either team came in the final seconds of the second half.
Deep into stoppage time, Jarmin sent a free kick into the box, and the ball was loose for a few seconds before Centralia’s Nena Venegas-Minor jumped on it.
The Tigers’ offense wasn’t able to generate many chances in the second half.
“We weren’t able to transition what we did in the first half to the second,” Centralia coach Luis Magana said. “We were chasing most of the time.”
Magana mentioned that he was hoping that the Tigers would be able to get a third goal to extend the lead before half, referring to the cliché that a 2-0 lead is the worst one to have in soccer.
“When a team has hope, it’s dangerous,” Magana said. “We saw that happen in the second half.
Izabella Hernandez opened the scoring in the 15th minute, and in the 31st, Cyndal Sills sent a free kick into the box from about 35 yards out, and it bounced on the turf, over the Black Hills’ keeper, and into the back of the net.
Magana said the second goal was “played to perfection” by Sills and Eva Reinitz. Sills sent the ball to a spot where the keeper would most likely catch it, but because Reinitz charged the ball as if she was going to play it, it made the keeper hesitate just long enough for the ball to land and bounce in.
Black Hills’ keeper, Angela Gibbs, made up for it and then some in the shootout. She made three saves, including one that set up Eva Parker’s winner in the first frame of sudden death.
“I have never doubted Angela,” Owen said. “She goes in so level and confident in everything that she does. Tonight, she was on fire.”
Venegas-Minor also impressed in the shootout, making two saves.
With the win, Black Hills (8-1) and Centralia (4-5) both sit at 2-1 in EvCo play, tied with W.F. West and one game back of Tumwater. Both Aberdeen and Shelton are 0-3.
“It keeps us in contention,” Owen said. “The goal is always to do the best you can in league, but we want to make it to the postseason. That’s always been our goal, and this keeps us in the running.”
Both teams will be back on Tuesday, and both teams will be facing their biggest rival. The Tigers will host W.F. West, while the Wolves will head across town to face Tumwater.
