4/12/16

Black Hills 3, Centralia 2

(Tumwater, WA) The Centralia Tigers and Black Hills Wolves are both similar teams in that they feature a lot of speed and both teams were looking to put pressure on the other’s back line as quickly as possible. The advantage went to the Wolves as they took several shots within the 1st 5  minutes but Tigers keeper Jesse Vazquez made a couple of tough stops to deny any early scoring.

The Wolves would take advantage in the 17th minute when Bekele Dowty launched a corner kick that bounced around in front of the goal when Gabe Ayala got a piece of the ball knocking it past Vazquez for the goal. The Tigers would crank up their attack and get a few more shots on goal but we would go to the half with Black Hills leading 1-0.

In the 2nd half it did not take the Wolves long to extend their lead when Bekele Dowty broke free into a 1-on-1 with Vazquez and pushed it past into the net to take a 2-0 lead in the 43rd. Yitagesu Dowty added to the lead in the 68th minute flipping it over Vazquez and the Wolves were cruising with a 3-0 lead.

It appeared the Wolves would cruise to the win even when they were called for a foul in the box in the 68th minute and the Tigers Laurence Silva punched it past Wolves keeper Matt Braun to get on the board and avoid the shut out. The match got interesting again in the 77th minute when Silva took a long pass at the 30 yard line on the Black Hills side of the field and sprinted past the back line knocking in a low hard shot in a 1-on-1 with Braun to make it 3-2.

The Tigers would rush to get the ball back in play and actually had Wolves Coach Frank Soiza holding his breath as the Tigers actually had a couple of chances in stoppage time to tie the match but the Wolves defense held and picked up the win to improve to 2-0 in league play and after an 0-6 start in non-league play apparently have put it together just at the right time. Centralia drops their 2nd straight 1-goal loss at Tumwater District Stadium and are off to an 0-2 start in league and now 4-4 overall.

Our Tommy Lowe of the Greene Realty Group Players of the Game went to Bekele Dowty of Black Hills and Laurence Silva for Centralia. The ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game went to Yitagesu Dowty’s goal that ended up being the winning shot.

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