Silas silences Kentlake and wins 1-0 on road

Kentlake knew they had trouble on their hands when they were paired with the Silas Rams. The Falcons themselves were in a bit of a rut, winning just one of their previous four games heading into the West Central District Tournament, while the Rams had won three in a row, playing possibly their best soccer of the season.

Silas junior forward Savannah Hinton took advantage of a confused Kentlake defense and scored the game winning goal in the fifth minute of the game. Silas left Kentlake 1-0 winners on Nov. 1 and sent Kentlake to the consolation bracket, making their state tournament wishes that much harder.

“I think there were chances on both sides. They had their chances, we had our chances. It was a good, even match. The goal we gave away, it’s as simple as our keeper makes a save, we step out and meet it. She makes the initial save, it’s on us to close down space and not let there be a second chance,” Head Coach Joe Grijalva said.

A slow to recover Kentlake defense led to Hinton’s opening goal as she took on Kentlake goalkeeper Susie Henderson one-on-one. Henderson made the first save, but the rebound found Hinton on the bounce, and she snuck it past Henderson for the game’s only goal.

“In a tight game like this, you make one mistake and that could be the decider. It was (tonight),” Grijalva said.

The shutout was the third time in five games where the Falcons have not been able to find the back of the net.

It’s certainly not due to a lack of trying. Camille Rigtrup, Shannon Mclain, the school’s all-time leader scorer, and Lauren Tripp all make threatening runs for the full 80 minutes. But the finishing touch, just hasn’t been there for Kentlake.

Sophomore Adalyn Sagen has really come on for Grijalva in back half of the season. Sagen found a lot of space down the right hand side of the field, even dishing the ball for one of Kentlake’s best opportunities in the second half. Sagen’s decisiveness has been a point of emphasis in her game.

“That’s something I’ve talked with her all season long. Whatever decision you make, just be decisive with whatever it is you chose. I feel like now you can see her being more confident in what she wants to do and it shows,” Grijalva said.

Silas just had answers all night for all the questions that Kentlake was trying to ask. But it appeared, in the 62nd minute, that Kentlake could crack the code.

Rigtrup was fouled right outside the 18-yard box, and the Falcons went with a bit of an unorthodox approach. It looked as if Madilyn Tripp was going to take the free kick with Rigtrup and her sister Lauren right in front of the ball. But what happened was Madilyn was a decoy and Lauren rolled the ball to Rigtrup who took the shot. Rigtrup’s shot grazed the cross bar for a goal kick.

“That’s something we train. It doesn’t always work in practice, but the more we work on it, we are going to use it in a game. Every ingredient was there, but we couldn’t keep it below the top post,” Grijalva said.

Kentlake would only have two more shots on target all night.

The Falcons now face elimination in the losers bracket. They play the loser of Enumclaw and Peninsula on Nov. 6 at Mount Tahoma. There was some visible frustration on the Kentlake sidelines after the loss to Silas, snd Grijalva’s job now is to center that frustration into a focused attack.

“They want to win every game, they want to be successful every game. As far as the scoreline goes, that one mistake was costly. It’s about them keeping a clear head, keeping their head up. We had some great key points in this game. Can we take that to the next game and cut out those one or two costly mistakes?” Grijalva said.