West Valley snaps winning streak after 4-2 loss to Cheney
The game-winning goal happened in slow motion.
West Valley was at Cheney Tuesday for the rubber game of their three-game season series and as it wound its way into the 78th minute, tied at two goals apiece, the Eagles had already seen two second-half chances just trickle past the goal mouth – including a ball that caromed off the crossbar and dropped just outside the goal line.
And then the momentum shifted.
The Blackhawks poked a ball through the West Valley midfield for Emma Scott, with Eagle defender Taylor Moloney in hot pursuit and goalkeeper Kellie Fitzpatrick charging out of the box to smother the ball.
All three players converged near the top of the penalty area. Moloney went for a sliding tackle, Fitzpatrick dove for the block, but Scott managed to get a foot on the ball and direct it past the prone goalie and it trickled, ever so slowly, into the lower left corner of the goal.
Scott added an insurance goal a minute later for a 4-2 win that moved the Blackhawks into third place in the Great Northern League with one game left on their regular season schedule.
Cheney (7-6 overall, 5-5 in league) has one game left, at East Valley on Saturday. The Blackhawks have lost their previous two meetings with the second-place Knights.
West Valley is tied with Cheney at 5-5 in league, but the Blackhawks own the tiebreaker, winning the head-to-head series, 2-1.
The Eagles have two games remaining in the regular season: at home today against second-place East Valley and Saturday against last-place Pullman.
The loss snapped a four-match win streak by the Eagles.
“We got off to a slow start to our season,” West Valley coach Shelli Totton-Peterson said. “But we got it turned around and have really been playing well lately. We were in third place and ready to creep into second coming into this game.
“We’ve got some really good talent on this team, but we can be very Jekyll and Hyde. You play like you practice, and we had a lousy practice Monday.”
The Eagles still can slide ahead of Cheney in the season standings with a second win in two tries over East Valley and a second-straight win at Pullman on Saturday.
West Valley lost a 4-3 decision in their first game with the Knights last month, then picked up a 5-4 win at East Valley on Oct. 5. Pullman beat WV at Pullman in the first meeting between the teams, 2-1 – its only league win thus far this season. The Eagles pummeled the Greyhounds, 7-0, in their meeting at West Valley.
Totton-Peterson admitted she has few clues about what changes her squad from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, and vice versa.
Against the Blackhawks, the game shifted into a defensive battle after the first 25 minutes of play – until the final 2 minutes.
Makenna Benson took a feed from Scott 9 minutes into the game and put the Blackhawks on top, 1-0. Kaitlyn Peeters took a feed from Scott in the 21st minute to make it 2-0.
And then West Valley knotted the score with two goals in the 22nd minute. Frankie Schade scored off a feed from Chelsea Koker, then Koker scored on a feed from Schade.
From there, it was a game that saw West Valley control the game through the midfield and its defense snuff out the few chances Cheney managed to put in front of Fitzpatrick.
In an effort to put some punch in the offense, Totton-Peterson moved Abby McConnell out of the back line of defense to play forward, where her size was too much for Cheney to defend.
Her best chance was a shot from just outside the box that glanced off the crossbar and just missed the goal line on the bounce.
Madeline Liberg got a foot on a ball in the goal box that bounced across the goal and just missed the far post.
“We need to bounce back and find a way,” the coach said.