Sandpoint girls advance to state finals
CALDWELL — After knocking off the only perfect team in the state in the first round, what do you do for an encore? The Sandpoint girls soccer team chose a 6-1 pasting of Hillcrest Friday afternoon to advance to the championship game of the Class 4-A girls state soccer tournament.
While both teams played grueling overtime games on Thursday, Sandpoint certainly didn’t look like a team that was suffering from fatigue.
“Both teams had overtime games out of the gate, and I was anxious to see how it was going to affect us,” Sandpoint coach Adam Tajan said. “We wanted to come out strong — and that’s what we did.”
Sandpoint got the scoring started in the 6th minute when Meghan Pagano finished to give the Bulldogs (13-4-2) a 1-0 lead.
In the 23rd minute, Alicia Mertz pushed the lead to 2-0 before Ellie Engel’s goal gave Sandpoint a 3-0 halftime lead.
Playing with a little more focus and determination, Hillcrest avoided the shutout and trimmed the deficit to 3-1 on a goal by Shayleen Crank in the 56th minute. But that was all that the Knights (10-8-2) could muster.
Sandpoint proceeded to put the game away by scoring three times in the game’s final 14 minutes on goals by Nichole Pagano, Savannah Engel and Mertz.
Further proof of the Bulldogs’ dominance were the shots on goal — 22 for Sandpoint to just four for Hillcrest.
“We saw a lot of success switching the point of attack,” Tajan said. “All season long, we’ve had some success on crosses — and we had some more of that today. And our corners were key. We stress that we just need to get a foot, a shin, or a head on the ball off a corner. And when you do that good things happen.”
In the first two rounds of the tournament, nothing but good things have happened for Sandpoint. Now, the Bulldogs are just one win away from achieving their season-long goal.
“This is our opportunity to make a statement,” Tajan said. “We’re back in 4-A and we want to come back to this classification and win it. I like our attitude right now. Our focus is where it needs to be. We have four seniors who have done a good job of keeping this team tight — and I hope that pays off for us in the finals.”
McKinzi Obaitek, Elli Kiselica, Hannah Griesemer and Melinda Van Dyk each had assists for the Bulldogs.
Sandpoint will face Kuna (16-4-2) in the state finals at 11 a.m. today in Caldwell. Kuna’s road to the finals consisted of two tight games — a 2-1 win over Wood River in the first round and a 2-1 overtime upset victory Friday over Skyview.