A pair of shutouts \u2014 and a pair of state girls soccer playoff berths.<\/p>\n
For top-ranked Kentwood and upset-minded Tahoma, it was as clear as that in last weekend\u2019s Class 4A West Central District playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Conquerors continued with their customary stingy defense, fending off Gig Harbor on Saturday at Bethel High School, 1-0. Just a couple hours earlier on the same Art Crate Stadium field, Tahoma stunned third-ranked Beamer, 2-0.<\/p>\n
Both district games were winner-to-state, loser-out.<\/p>\n
Kentwood will be making its fourth straight state trip. The Conquerors (16-0-2) opened state at 7 p.m. Wednesday at French Field against Shorewood.<\/p>\n
Tahoma (10-4-4) was at Issaquah.<\/p>\n
Despite their No. 1 ranking, Kentwood had a difficult time with Gig Harbor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey outplayed us for the majority of the game,\u201d Conquerors coach Aaron Radford said. \u201cWe had a couple spurts where we had some good looks, but that was about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took the Conquerors almost all of regulation to finally put one between the pipes. Shannon McNally deposited Kentwood\u2019s lone goal in the 74th minute on an assist from Laura Moore. McNally\u2019s goal just made it inside the upper right-hand corner of the net.<\/p>\n
Megan Walburn and Courtney Johnson combined for the shutout, the duo\u2019s 15th of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping our team can play a little better (tonight against Shorewood),\u201d Radford said.<\/p>\n
While Kentwood did what was expected, the Bears pulled off the surprise of the tournament with a victory against Beamer. The Titans, top-ranked for most of the year, lost to Kentwood in last week\u2019s South Puget Sound League championship match.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Beamer couldn\u2019t solve the Bears, either.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very big,\u201d Tahoma coach Corinne Welch said . \u201cThe girls have just had two great, strong tournament games. (Against Beamer) they completely played all over the field for that win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molly Picha got the Bears on the board in the 46th minute, converting a penalty kick. Nearly 20 minutes later, junior midfielder Kaylee Osterman put one in unassisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey seem to play better under pressure and against stronger teams,\u201d Welch noted.<\/p>\n
Kaila Wilkinson and Amber Woolcock combined in goal for Tahoma\u2019s shutout.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A pair of shutouts \u2014 and a pair of state girls soccer playoff berths. For top-ranked Kentwood and upset-minded Tahoma, it was as clear as that in last weekend\u2019s Class 4A West Central District playoffs. The Conquerors continued with their customary stingy defense, fending off Gig Harbor on Saturday at Bethel High School, 1-0. Just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19317"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}