By Pierre LaBossiere
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Playing in surreal light under a blood-red sun caused by smoke from distant forest fires, the Roughrider soccer girls played a big and fast Klahowya team tough in the first half, but too many defensive breakdowns were their downfall in a 3-1 season-opening loss.
“We had our moments in the first half, then at times we seemed to forget how to play soccer,” said coach Scott Moseley.
Moseley said it was a disappointing opening game. He said the Riders gave a good Klahowya team too many chances, with mistakes allowing Eagles forwards to get wide open deep in the Riders end of the field.
“We gifted them three goals. Their three goals were because of our bad decisions [on defense],” Moseley said.
In fact, Klahowya, which went to the 1A State Tournament last year, easily could have scored six or seven goals as the Eagles had the Riders on their heels at times. Three of their shots hit a post or a crossbar. Another good shot resulted in a spectacular leaping save by second-half goalie Delaney Wenzl and another golden opportunity was blocked by Riders defender Summer Olsen. Bonnie Sires, playing goal in the first half, also made a good save, coming way out of the net to steal the ball from a Klahowya forward who had got behind the defense.
Lola DelGuzzi-Flores scored a goal for the Riders in the first couple of minutes. After that, the ball stayed in the Riders end for much of the rest of the game, though it was still tied 1-1 at the half. The Riders’ next best chance came on some nice passing between Wenzl and Sierra Robinson, which led to a good shot.
Tyler Townsend for Klahowya scored a pair of goals and generally gave the Rider defenders a lot of problems all game with her speedy runs.
It appeared in the second half that the Riders had taken a lead on a goal aftar a ball got loose from the Klahowya goalie, but the ref ruled that the ball was dead and disallowed the goal. After that, the Eagles took over the game with a pair of goals.
Moseley gave credit to Olsen for playing a strong game on defense.
The Riders (0-1) next play at Vashon at 6 p.m. today.
