By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

TURNER, Ore.– It didn’t look good for the Cascade Cougars at about the halfway point of the opening half versus Philomath.

The Warriors held a 2-nil lead and frustration was there for Cascade as they saw their offense stall because of the thick puddles on the Philomath side of the goal.

The thing that Skip Collins as preached is to keep fighting…and they did.

“It was really hard but we just had to push through and win the battle,” said sophomore Nyah Collins on the fight and the adversity at hand.

Collins would cut the lead 2-1 in the 27th min. Emma Woods tied it a few minutes later at two apiece to leave the Warriors walking to their bench stunned with Head Coach Skip Collins rallying the troops with an inspirational speech in there’s.

Skip Collins was happy with how his daughter, Nyah, is coming into her own with the talented team that she’s playing on.

“Just for (Nyah) to be able to put that goal in, build her confidence, she put our first goal in over at Newport and she put this first goal in, it just shows how special she’ll be in the future,” he said.

As for the mantra of not giving up and keep fighting, well it’s just something that identify this team.

“The fact that (we’re) not giving up,” said Skip Collins.  “That’s just what we do, it’s just what we do.  Just keep going to the whistle blows.

The Cougars came out wanting the lead with strong presence by Woods and Collins on both sides of the field.

But so did Philomath as 19 gave them a 3-2 lead in the 44th minute as they followed the same groove that Woods did on her goal down the teams end of the field.

Jencia Wiebanga had a chance to tie it but the shot was saved by the fingertips of the Warriors Madison Rogers.

Brooklynn Petterson tied it in the 50th with a PK kick and Maliah Russell saw her shot saved by Rogers in the 62nd as the game got physical.

“Philomath is a big competition in our league and I think that we came and we played to their level and I think we did great,” said Nyah Collins.

Woods had a chance to give Cascade a lead in the 67th to only see it barely sail to the left of the goal as the Cougs offense was finding its groove in the dry part of the field.

The Cascade defense continued to play strong to set up the opportunities up on the offensive end with Faith Craig in goal.

She was put to the test in the final four minutes of the game as she saved Molly Klipfel shot to preserve the tie.

“It’s really important for us to really focus on communicating and just keeping our heads up and not shutting down because they were advancing.  I feel like that’s important,” said Craig. “And I think us talking and my defense pulled it together and their amazing.”

In the final minute, the cougars drove down.  Woods tried for the win, no good.  Leah Delmarter had a clean shot only to have the grass push it out of bounds before it could go in as time expired.

Though they couldn’t pull off the ‘W’ on Senior Day/Night, the senior Collins enjoyed how his team battled through the adversity that presented itself to his team.

“It was really intense because we went down 2-0 in the first 15 minutes and what was awesome was the fact the girls didn’t’ give up and they had heart,” said Skip Collins. “That’s the first time all year we’ve been down and they had to battle back.

“I really think that this game will help us in the playoffs because being able to come back and just the adversity that the girls went through it was great.”

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