Bulldog girls soccer suffers last-minute defeat in tight game

SANDPOINT — It was a surprisingly sunny day at Pine Street Field as Sandpoint High’s varsity girls soccer team battled it out neck and neck against Liberty Lake’s Ridgeline Highschool.

But as the sun broke through the clouds and smoke, so too the Ridgeline Falcons broke the bulldog’s defenses and win the game in the last minute with the only point scored during the match.

The first half was a dynamic slug match between two teams.

“The first half was the best half this team has played,” head coach Connor Baranski stated after the game.

The Bulldogs were able to apply pressure on the opposing team and frustrate their attempts to move the ball forward, while still being able to make plays and run the ball into Ridgeline’s defensive end. The dogs’ defensive formation was tight and they had many scoring opportunities and good looks in the first half - but were kept from goals by Falcon defenders.

“We were able to pass effectively and move quickly down the field. The second half we just ran out of gas,” Baranski said.

While the Falcons didn’t fly circles around the SHS in the second half, the home team was consistently outmaneuvered. They stopped being able to center the ball or outmaneuver defenders to break for the goal. Instead, they were pushed towards the sidelines before they could get a pass or shot off.

During the second half, instead of breaking the Falcons’ lines, the Bulldogs found themselves trying to loop back, keeping the ball around midfield or in their end. The girls had run out of steam and were not engaging in risky plays.

Of course, when Falcon sophomore Natalie Thompson got a pass from senior Lilly Pesnell and sank it over our goalie’s left shoulder in the last minute of the game, things started to heat up. But the Bulldogs were still unable to break enemy lines.

Conditioning notwithstanding, Baranski thought the girls played well.

“These girls are good. They are with the Greater Spokane League,” Baranski cited metro-Spokane’s larger talent pool.

Ridgeline High is still pretty new on the scene. The school has just started its operations as the newest school in Washington’s Central Valley School District and it seems like they have something to prove.

While Ridgeline and Sandpoint were fairly evenly matched for the first half if anything, Sandpoint had the upper hand, Ridgeline's girls had the resistance to see the game through to the end and seized on Sandpoint’s exhaustion in the last moments of a game that many in spectators thought was going to overtime.

Box Scores:

Sandpoint Bulldogs 0 - 0 - 0 - 0

Ridgeline Falcons 0 - 0 - 0 - 1