By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

STAYTON, Ore.— For eight Stayton High School Girls Soccer players, they entered Thursday’s match-up against Cascade playing their last home game for the Blue and White.

Despite senior Alexus Hemphill scoring in the contest, the OSAA fourth-ranked Cougars (9-1-2, 8-0-1 Oregon West Conference) spoiled the 20^th-ranked Eagles’ (5-4-3, 4-3-2 OWC) Senior Day 3-1, winning their first girls soccer conference title in school history.

“It’s really important, it’s the first time in Cascade school history that they’ve won a girls soccer league championship, In any girls or boys soccer.” said Cascade Head Coach Skip Collins on the win. “It’s a really great accomplishment for the girls and I’m really proud of them.”

Stayton Head Coach Ian Van der Zwan looked at the game from an positive angle, knowing that it’s just a prep for their play-in game on the other side of Tuesday’s game versus Philomath.

“These two games are just practice for the play-ins,” said Van der Zwan.  “but this team is sixth in the state right now and Philomath is ninth right now, so we’re playing two Top 10 teams going into a play-in game.

“So it’s the best situation heading into it, playing two better teams now and then going into play-ins.”

The Cougars were on cue in the first half with an aggressive and pressuring offense as they built a 2-0 lead with goals by Jenica Wiebenga and Emma Woods in the ninth and 20th-minutes respectively.

“The game plan was to play our ball, that we spread the field making sure that we communicating well,” “We had a lot of touches, we knew Stayton was going to be tough and as you saw it was a battle.  It always is.”

Alexus Hemphill started on the back defensive line for the Eagles because of the wind against Stayton, but when Cascade scored the two quick goals, Van der Zwan moved his senior star forward to the front line.

“The strategy was to, in the first half keep it 0-0, put her on top in the second half trying to get one goal and put the game away,” described Van der Zwan.  “But we were unfortunate and let two easy goals and had to switch up our strategy to playing her on top.”

The move helped the intensity of Stayton’s offense entering the second half.

Hemphill’s first shot of the game during the early part of the second half was on target off a corner kick, but the wind would push it slightly to the left to miss the inside of the net to keep Cascade’s shutout intact.

The Stayton defense, behind Sofia Gomez, kept the Cougars offense off the board since Woods 20th-minute goal, adjusting to the pressure and the aggressiveness presented by the Cascade offense.

“That’s one of her best qualities,” said Van der Zwan on Gomez’s performance.  “She does a really good job of controlling the defense, she’s a confident player.  She’s not arrogant and she knows her ability and she plays to her ability.”

A few minutes later however, Esmeralda Flores had a hand ball foul called on her trying to make a play on the ball inside the box resulting in Brooklyn Petterson to take a penalty kick.  The result was a goal as the Cougars took a 3-0 lead over Stayton.

The goal didn’t affect the mental state of the Eagles as they kept fighting and kept their intensity up; and Stayton’s persistency paid off.

In the 72^nd minute, Hemphill would break the shutout with a PK-goal of her own.  The goal was her sixth in the last games.

Emma VanVeen said that this was probably one of the best games that they’ve played this year.

“I think it was one of the best games that we’ve played, we all played together no one was selfish,” she said.  “We all worked together, we used our wings.  We came back in the inside.  That wasn’t a bad game; I don’t think there’s any disappointment in it at all.”

“They’re one of the best teams in the state right now,” added Hemphill on Cascade.  “So if we can compete with the top competition, then there’s no reason why we can’t beat number 12 or number 13 team.”

SCORE                      1          2          —  T

COUGARS                2          1          —  3

EAGLES                   0          1          —  1

GOALS:  CASCADE-  Wiebenga, J (9’).  Woods, E (20’).  Petterson, B.  STAYTON-  Hemphill (72’)

UP NEXT:  STAYTON- @Philomath (10/27 4:15pm).  CASCADE-  vs. North Marion (10/27 4pm)

BOYS SOCCER- STAYTON 3, CASCADE 0—In Turner, the Eagle’s (10-0-2, 7-0-2 OWC) shutout the Cougars behind Freddy Navarro’s two-goal game. Ivan Navarro added another for Stayton in the win.

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!