By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  North Marion-grad Danielle Christenson showed off her toughness in Umpqua Community College’s tough 2-0 defeat to Chemeketa Wednesday afternoon.  Taking a ball off the head  while defending and a cleat to the calf while trying to clear a ball out of the net, putting her body on the line to keep the Storm at bay.  With three subs on the bench, 

Having played goalie for five games last season, going 3-2 with 33 saves before transitioning back to the field for the Riverhawks, Christenson just wanted to find ways to help her team.by being verstalie for the former Huskie player and Riverhawk sophomore.  

“It’s really good to lead my team and show urgency when we need it, but I take it as a compliment to be versatile, so I’ve stepped in as an outside back.  But anything I can do to get there and play everywhere on the field is a great day.  I’ve enjoyed it,” Christenson starts.  “It was so good not to let them score (in the second half), so we were watching the offsides and making sure they were flat and the midfield was controlled by us.  So it was great to practice up and make sure everyone was marked, control the game at our pace.

“We’re really going to work on working together because we don’t have a lot of numbers.  So what we have, we’re going to continue moving forward by moving the ball so we can finish every game strongly.”

Christensen nearly broke the Storm shutout in the 77th minute on a free kick that made contact with the top bar of the goal.  Chemeketa had done their damage in the first half with goals from Myranda Marquez (Woodburn) and Ariana Albright-Santana (McNary) and had pushed tempo for their third win in the NWAC South Region, starting the league season 3-0 and picked up their second shutout in that span.  

The Storm worked on a new formation that helped them get their lead, all they need to do now is to continue to work possession as they embark on a five-game home stretch with Portland coming to town Saturday at noon as their next game.

“It was kinda hard at first because we were starting with another formation, but we figured it out and it was pretty solid.  Most of the time we were on our half and we were figuring things out from the back on up,” Albright-Santana said.  “We just kind of calmed down a little bit and possessed more…we were here to practice our possession more (in the second half) because we struggled with that. 

Albright-Santana points towards them having to focus more as they now prepare for the Panthers, who are 3-0 in NWAC South Region play as well following their 6-0 win over Lane on Wednesday in Portland and knowing how tough they are as the two squads meet up in Salem in a few days.

UCC hosts Southwestern Oregon Community College Saturday at noon.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald