Three-Goal Barrage Lifts W.F. West Over R.A. Long
May 6—Box score
At W.F. West
BEARCATS 3, LUMBERJACKS 0
R.A. Long 0 0 — 0
W.F. West 3 0 — 3
Scoring Summary
WFW (24') — Israel Lopez Cruz (Ezra Bolin)
WFW (26') — Damian Hernandez (Lopez Cruz)
WFW (32') — Cody Pennington (Lopez Cruz)
The W.F. West boys soccer team arrived at the big stage Saturday afternoon, and the Bearcats stepped up to the challenge, running away from R.A. Long in a 3-0 win to open play at the 2A District 4 tournament.
"They've been looking forward and building up to this moment, the playoffs, for a full year now," WFW coach Allen Anderson said. "I thought we played some of our best soccer today as a team, just in terms of controlling the ball, dictating the tempo and the flow of the game, picking and choosing how we were attacking."
The Bearcats dictated possession for just about all 80 minutes, but spent nearly a quarter of an hour trying to slot a final pass through or over R.A. Long's back line.
The opening goal finally came off of a throw-in in the 24th minute, when Israel Lopez-Cruz took the ball off the throw, turned into the penalty area, and found the low corner with his left foot.
That opened the floodgates. After asking the Lumberjacks to stand strong and clear every attempted through ball, the Bearcats finally forced their guests into a misplay at the back, and Damian Hernandez was there to pounce on the loose ball with nothing but green grass in front of him, converting an easy one-on-one.
"Getting those goals was two-fold," Anderson said. "It lifted our guys up, and I think it kind of dropped their heads a bit on the other team, got them a bit on their heels. We were to able to just ride that momentum."
Lopez Cruz earned the assist on the second goal, and after nearly 10 minutes of extended pressure, he got his second helper of the day with a skillful individual effort, drawing four RAL defenders and dancing past all of them before laying the ball off for Cody Pennington. The senior forward took a touch before chipping it over a charging keeper, and W.F. West had its foot in the district semifinal before halftime.
"We spent an entire day of practice this week working on our transition game, because we knew the kind of pressure R.A. Long uses," Anderson said. "We saw a couple of areas where we could exploit them, and the transition was one of those opportunities."
The Bearcats wouldn't score again after the break, but still salted the match away with possession, keeping the ball in the midfield and never letting R.A. Long get much of anything in the attacking third.
The Lumberjacks had a couple of runs come close to landing early, with keeper Hayden Sciera having to come off of his line to clear the ball, but he wouldn't get an official save until the 70th minute, when he collected a slow-rolling ball on the ground that never was any real trouble.
The win is W.F. West's second straight district-opening shutout. The road will get a lot harder for the Bearcats coming up, with a trip to undefeated Columbia River coming up Tuesday.
"I told the boys if we want to be the best, we've got to beat the best," Anderson said. "Mentally, we're always up for that challenge."
