BELFAIR — Port Angeles’ season came to a close in windy conditions in a 1-0 loss against Lindbergh in the Class 2A District 2/3 Girls Soccer Tournament on Friday at North Mason High School.
“The girls did a really good job of playing through it,” coach Daniel Horton said of the conditions.
“We are always trying to get our team to maintain possession, even on a nice day when it’s not windy or rainy we want to play the ball to feet and keep it low. We picked the best time to take care of the ball and play some great through balls and make some good runs. For how bad the weather was, I feel it was a really clean game. Both teams were consistent with the build up.
The Roughriders (11-6) had opportunities, especially in the first half.
“We outshot them in the first half, we hit the crossbar twice, it was one of those games where you knew if a team was going to score in the second half that would probably be the winning goal,” Horton said.
Lindbergh’s speedy striker broke through in the 65th minute to put the Eagles up 1-0.
“They were putting some pretty clean through balls and that was the scary part because they have a very quick striker like Sequim uses [Taryn] Johnson and they were playing the ball through for her in any window they would have.”
Port Angeles tried to chase down the tying goal and had one last good shot on goal when Anna Petty and freshman Pyper Alton broke away down the right side of the field. Petty passed to Alton and her shot dipped just over the crossbar.
“We couldn’t make a wrong decision there,” Horton said. “You want your senior captain and one of your best athletes able to make those decisions out on the field.”
“I learned a lot in my first season with the program and I am very proud of how hard the girls worked and improved every step of the way. Every time any of us coaches challenged them in any way they stepped up and put in the work necessary to maintain a high level of success. Our players bought in and gave us an amazing season overall. We preached a program first mentality, and that’s what we got, unselfish players who played for each other and not for themselves.
“We had 10 different girls score goals this year, including five freshmen.”
Horton had words for all his seniors.
“Anna is like having another coach on the field, as soon as film is up she’s messaging and asking us about what to do. Having that presence and game knowledge will be hard to fill. All of our seniors played amazing, asked Lilly [Sanders] to switch positions, learn how to be a defender, be the anchor and teach our freshmen.
Piper [Williams]started at striker, defense and midfield and she could have started at any position for us.
Julia [Baeder]: “We would joke with her to tap into her wrestling season mentality and she was always willing to do that for us.”
Goalkeeper Saylah Commerton: “Good luck for us, trying to replace her. She kept us in so many games with her aggression and ability to read the ball off the foot.
Samara Houlshouser: “We knew she would be aggressive and play full speed for us and she really helped us down the stretch.”
