Soccer: WF West holds off Centralia in big EVCO 2A battle

4/21/2023

WF West 1, Centralia 0

(Centralia, WA) The crosstown rivalry had the added component of battling for the “Chronicle” cup, a trophy the two schools battle for each year in their head-to-head matches sponsored by The Chronicle newspaper. WF West came in with a 2-0 lead in the aggregate scoring meaning the Tigers would have to win by 3 to retain the cup.

Tigers Head Coach Noel Vazquez in his 1st year with a laser focused goal of getting Centralia back into the play-offs for the 1st time in 5 seasons told his team not to worry ab0ut the cup. He said, “we need to win this game and if we do we will have a huge advantage of holding on to 4th place, the final play-off slot going into districts.” The EVCO 4th place team will have to play the 5th place GSHL team in a pigtail match to get into the district tournament but even the pigtail game would be more than Centralia has even come close to over the past half decade.

Meantime, Bearcats coach Allen Anderson was intent on holding onto 2nd place and coming off a huge win over Tumwater they are in the drivers seat for 2nd which means they would host the opening round of the district tournament. This would be a huge step for the Bearcats as they have been knocking on the door of the top 2 for several seasons.

Aberdeen has all but wrapped up the title and added to their lead with a 5-0 shutout over Rochester on Friday night and they will be the EVCO 2A Champions now sitting at 9-0 with 3 matches to play. WF West was tied with Tumwater at 6-3 coming into the match and then Centralia at at 4-5.

Prior to the match Bearcats coach Allen Anderson told ESN he was hoping to get on the board quickly and did not want a carry-over from their big win over Tumwater to impact their play against Centralia. Anderson says Centralia is very stingy at giving up goals and an early one or two would put a ton of pressure on the Tigers offense which has been struggling noting they have not scored more than 2 goals in a league match except once in a 4-3 loss to Shelton.

On the flip side Vazquez has been very conservative at times packing 9 defenders down tight and have only given up more than 2 goals twice 4 to Shelton and 3 the 1st time they played WF West in a 3-1 loss. Vazquez wanted to come out and attack and try to get the Bearcats on their heels thinking maybe there would be a let down after they beat Tumwater.

Well for the most part neither vision both coaches had played out. To be fair Centralia did play a lot more aggressively on the offense for the 1st 1 minutes but then they collapsed back into a defensive mode. WF West did not really come close to putting in a quick score but began building their attacks and took over possession time for the 2nd 20 minutes of the 1st half but neither team would give in as both defenses played well.

Centralia was led by keeper Carlos Hernandez who would record 15 saves including an impressive late save to keep the Tigers in the match. Angel Rojas, Alex Hernandez, Darrell Neuert and Alan Cox all put in solid defense on the backline with Cox having a particularly strong performance. The Bearcats keeper Hayden Sciera was also stingy getting the shut out and picking off 5 saves. Defenders Tyson Castillo, Charles Comiskey and a terrific game from Cameron Kunz. The two teams would go to the halftime break in a scoreless tie.

In the 2nd half the Tigers still weren’t attacking as much as Vazquez wanted and instead got caught kinda in between which created the best chance of the night for WF West to put one in. The lone scoring drive began with Sciera picking up a save and booting it to the left side to Cody Pennington who dribbled it up the near sideline and then knocked over a pinpoint pass to Jeremy Thompson who then sidestepped a defender and fired from the top of the box getting Hernandez to go to his right and Thompson came back to his left for the score.

The Tigers then countered with 2 great opportunities when Simba Osman fired a deep shot on frame but was caught by Sciera and then moments later on a free kick to Leo Perez Centralia again with a chance but Perez’s attempt was also stopped by Sciera to deny the Tigers of the equalizer.

However, the Bearcats could not get an insurance goal either with their best chance late in the match with about 4 minutes to play when the Bearcats fired a shot from the 20-yard line but Hernandez punched the ball over to keep the Tigers within 1.

In the end there would be no more scoring and WF West pulled out the 1-0 win. Our Thorbeckes MVP’s for the match went to the Bearcats Jeremy Thompson and the Tigers Alan Cox with both keepers getting serious consideration along with the Bearcats Cameron Kunz and the Tigers Angle Rojas.

The win improves WF West to 7-3 and they got a huge help from Shelton who stunned Tumwater as they dropped to 6-4. Centralia is now a half game behind Black Hills for 4th and they will play the Wolves on the 28th. Here are the updated EVCO 2A league standings:

Aberdeen 9-0
WF West 7-3
Tumwater 6-4
Black Hills 4-5
Centralia 4-6
Shelton 3-6
Rochester 0-9

Link to watch the replay of the full match on the NFHS Network