Wolf senior Lindsey Roberts launched a 30-yard missile Thursday, netting the 16th goal of her stellar prep soccer career. (Photos by JohnsPhotos.net)
Mallory Kortuem, directing traffic in an earlier game, held her own against a physical Granite Falls squad.
Lindsey Roberts can mash a ball.
The Coupeville High School senior possesses a golden leg, one capable of launching a soccer ball like a missile from the 30-yard line, before snapping it off and neatly dropping said ball right over the shoulder of a flailing goaltender.
She’s done it before and she did it again Thursday night, providing the game’s biggest bang in a rough-and-tumble bout with visiting Granite Falls.
It was the kind of night when an otherwise easy-going Wolf booter paced back and forth after the game, telling a teammate “I was so close to squaring up on that girl!”
It was also the kind of night when, despite Roberts cannon shot, and solid work in net by backup goalie Mollie Bailey, Coupeville fell 4-1.
The loss drops the Wolves to 1-4 in North Sound Conference play, 1-7-1 overall.
CHS sits in fifth-place in the six-team league.
Granite Falls used a stingy defense (and a few well-placed elbows) to improve to 3-1 in league action.
The Tigers are lurking in second-place, a game-and-a-half off of the pace of defending 1A state champ King’s, which is 5-0 after hammering South Whidbey 5-0 Thursday night.
The match-up against Granite Falls, the first home game for Coupeville after four straight on the road, opened with a bang, and a bad one at that.
Attacking right off the opening tip, the Tigers slammed home a goal less than a minute into play, slipping in a sizzler from the left side on a breakaway.
With starting goalie Sarah Wright off on a college visit, Bailey, a sophomore, got a rare start in the net and largely held her own, making several nice saves as the evening played out.
“Mollie did a solid job,” said Coupeville coach Kyle Nelson. “Very nice to see.”
Bailey, who made an impressive snag on a ball during a multi-player rumble in front of the net, teamed with her defenders to clamp down hard on the Tigers after the opening goal, holding them scoreless the rest of the way until halftime.
Coupeville had trouble getting many shots of its own in the first half, however (something which would change after the break), and the game remained stuck at 1-0 for almost 40 minutes.
Wolf freshman Kiara Contreras had a nice run down the right side, and Genna Wright fought the good fight in a crowd of sharp elbows, but nothing was going in for CHS.
The Wolves, who have struggled to score in recent games, finally broke the seal on the net in stoppage time.
Roberts set up on a free kick, and with everyone in the stadium glued to her every move, brought back memories of former Wolf Jenn Spark, who used to routinely crush long balls in the same manner.
The Granite net-minder jumped as the ball came in hot, but had no chance to stop the rocket as it curved neatly into the back of the net for Roberts’ third goal of the season, and 16th of her stellar career.
The goal seemed to suck a lot of the air out of the visitors in the moment, but halftime, which arrived mere seconds later, saved them.
Revived by the break (and maybe orange slices?), the Tigers pushed their attack in the second half, slipping home the tiebreaker six minutes in, before tacking on cushion goals in the 57th minute and in stoppage time.
CHS had multiple chances to generate goals of its own in the offense-heavy second half, but the soccer gods were unforgiving.
Avalon Renninger, Wright and Roberts all had quality looks, and snappy shots, only to have the ball ding off the crossbar or skip by the net by a matter of inches.
Not making things better, the Wolves appeared to have a second goal, only to have the lead ref be the only person in the stadium, including all the Granite players and coaches, to think the ball hadn’t crossed the threshold.
After the Tiger goalie lost the ball, another Granite booter went into the net to kick it out, but did so in the manner of someone who thinks their team has just given up a score and is returning the ball to midfield.
To the surprise of all, and the disappointment of Wolf supporters, the ref acted as if nothing had happened, and, after a few seconds of everyone struck in neutral, play picked back up.
Nelson would have liked the goal, but didn’t hold the non-call as a defining moment.
As he pointed out, there are a lot of angles in a stadium, and while it might have looked like a score from many of them, it’s possible (maybe…) the ref had the one angle where the ball didn’t get across the line.
Instead of being angry, Nelson instead chose to focus on his team’s near misses, which showed an aggressiveness on offense which may yet benefit the Wolves.
“It was nice to see us step up against a very physical team. That’s a good sign,” he said. “We had some good shots that just wouldn’t go in.
“I’ve told the girls, if we keep getting good looks and shots, they will eventually start to go in. They just need to keep firing.”
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