Soccer: T-Birds solid 2nd half does in Centralia

4/11/2023

Tumwater 2, Centralia 0

(Centralia, WA) The 4-2 T-Birds were looking for revenge against the 2-4 Tigers who stunned Tumwater on the T-Birds home field back on March 14th and right now they are tied for 2nd with WF West both of them 2 games behind the 6-0 Aberdeen Bobcats.

In the 1st half the Tigers stacked the box defensively with 9 plus the keeper back on defense putting up a brick wall. Tumwater did get 3 corner kicks and T-Birds Coach Brett Bartlett kept urging his players to spread out the attack and switch the passes back and forth to try and create gap to find and try to score.

The Tigers keeper Carlos Hernandez and backline defenders of Luis Noel Orellano, Angel Rojas, Allen Ozborne and Alan Cox held the T-Birds at bay. Even though the Centralia chances were limited the Tumwater defense was stout led by keeper AJ Heichelbech and backliners Lukas Stuart, Pierce Yates and Jacob Kaikkonen which led to that 0-0 halftime tie.

In the 2nd half it was Centralia taking the aggressive approach early and made a couple of deep runs led by their striker Leo Perez and Miles Page but again stiff resistance from the T-Birds defense denied the Tigers offense. T-Birds keeper Heichelbech recorded 4 saves with 2 of them at these key point in the match.

After that Centralia again retreated to a defensive stand packing back tight inside the 18 and the T-Birds turned up the pressure when in the 59th minute Gabe O’Connor sent one toward the goal and was knocked out by a Tiger defender but right to Dylan Stevens who then connected with a clean shot to the left of the Hernandez and in for the score.

Tumwater then got a quick insurance goal 5 minutes later in the 65th off a free kick from mid-field when Lukas Stuart served up a brilliant deep lay-up in front of the box and O’Connor headed it in for the 2-0 lead.

Centralia coach Noel Vazquez then implored his team to change out of the defensive mode and said they need numbers now and as his team shifted to an offensive attack it was too much and too much defense from Tumwater that refused to let the Tigers get back in the match and secured their 5th league win of the season to improve to 5-2 and 5-4 overall.

The Tigers drop to 2-5 in EVCO 2A play and 3-6 on the season. Tumwater will next host Black Hills on Thursday and Centralia travels to Rochester on Friday. Our Thorbeckes MVP’s went to Tumwater’s Dylan Stevens and Centralia’s Leo Perez.