Soccer: EVCO 2A Centralia headed to Play-offs for the 1st time since 2017; WF West League Champs

4/30/2024

The EVCO 2A almost wrapped up their regular season last night and did so in spectacular fashion with the Centralia Tigers pulling off a huge win at Aberdeen to secure 3rd place. WF West at 9-2 has clinched the Championship and will finish their league schedule at 4-7 Rochester Tuesday night with no impact on the final standings for either team.

The Bearcats are Champions and will host an opening round District tournament game on Saturday against the 4 seed from the GSHL. Centralia and Tumwater finish tied for 2nd with 8-4 league records but Tumwater gets the 2 seed and will host the 3 seed from the GSHL on Saturday.

The Tigers got the 3 seed because even though they split with Tumwater, the T-Birds aggregate score was 4-3 over Centralia winning 3-2 and losing 2-1. The Tigers will travel to the 2 seed on Saturday in the opening round of Districts. Aberdeen takes 4th place and will have to play a pig-tail, play-in game on Thursday with the 5th place GSHL team with the winner moving on to face #1 seed Columbia River on Saturday and the loser is out.

Centralia 3, Aberdeen 2 (Shoot-out)

(Aberdeen, WA) Centralia knew a win would clinch their 1st trip to postseason since 2017. The once proud and annually tough program had fallen on hard times until Coach Noel Vazquez arrived last year. Vazquez is not unfamiliar with turning around programs and began his head coaching career taking over the Toledo girls as a 20-year-old head coach. In fact the day he arrived for his interview he looked so young the receptionist took him to a couonselor to get registered instead of to his interview.

Vazquez wasted little time making an impact winning the 1st of multiple Central 2B Coach of the Year awards. He also took Toledo to their only final 4 and highest state finish in school history of 4th place. Vazquez left and was an assistant at Centralia for both the boys and girls teams before accepting the new men’s Head Coach at Centralia College.

Vazquez added the Centralia Tiger boys head job to his list of duties last year and began the transformation. He spent that year instilling his style and expectations while learning all he could about his players. That work has paid off quickly as the Tigers pulled off a huge win at Aberdeen on Monday night.

The Bobcats took a 1-0 lead on a PK but Centralia tied it up in stoppage time of the 1st half when Damian Corona scored on an assist from Angle Rojas. The Bobcats re-took the lead in the 2nd half and it appeared the Cats would pull out a 2-1 win and tie Centralia for 3rd and it would come down to the 2nd tie-breaker which would have gone Aberdeen’s way and they would be in the District Tournament and Centralia would have had to play the play-in game.

Then in stoppage time Centralia attacked and got fouled in the box setting up a PK to tie the match. Simba Osman would take the PK and scored to push the match to overtime. Neither team could score in the 5 minute Golden Goal OT’s sending it to a shoot-out. The Tigers Keeper Alejandro Arevalo already had 8 saves in the match but swatted down an amazing 3 PK’s to deliver the win for Centralia.

The Tigers will play a non-league match on Wednesday against Raymond-South Bend but Vazquez saysn his JV players are going to get a lot of time in that match. The District schedule has not been finalized and so where and what they play on Saturday has not yet been determined. (EVCO 2A Standings below Video Highlights)

Damian Corona ties it for Centralia in the 1st half