Too much speed and depth and too much of everything.
Wood River High School's girls' soccer team staged a passing and ball control clinic to topple the top-ranked Idaho 3A Community School Cutthroats from the unbeaten ranks 4-0 Saturday in Hailey.
Leading scorer Aimee Evans (15 goals) scored two goals for her third straight multi-goal outing and Wood River out-shot the Cutthroats 31-7 with a 13-2 edge in corner kicks during the non-conference game played before 600 avid soccer fans.
Jazz Campbell and Laura Elgee, juniors like Evans, added Wood River goals as the home team applied relentless pressure for 80 minutes and scored mainly on set pieces.
Wood River coach Greg Gvozdas said, "We were very motivated today and applied a lot of pressure. It's nice to have a healthy team and that makes us deep. We felt we could use our speed but we had some nervous energy at the beginning. As the game progressed our play got better."
It was a bump in the road for coach Kelly Feldman's Cutthroats (11-1-0, 9-0-0 league), rolling along in a record-setting soccer season. But they're still outscoring opponents 71-6.
Gvozdas' Wolverines (7-3-1, 5-0-0 league) turned around Monday on the South Valley Sports Complex pitch and whipped the Jerome Tigers 8-3 for their sixth straight win—a three-week stretch when they've outscored foes 35-7.
Resurgent Wood River is now unbeaten in seven games since a 4-0 loss at top-ranked 4A Hillcrest (9-1-1) Aug. 25 in Idaho Falls. They'll wrap up their regular-season Saturday, Sept. 29 at 11 a.m. with the "Senior Night" home game against the Minico Spartans (4-10-2, 1-3-0).
Gvozdas said, "We want to finish strong with our games against Jerome and Minico."
Minico is likely to be top-seeded Wood River's first-round opponent when the state-qualifying Great Basin Conference West tournament opens Thursday, Oct. 4. With a win over Minico today, Burley (3-7-2, 2-3-0) will earn the second seed and will host #3-seeded Jerome (3-10-1, 2-4-0) in the tournament's first round.
The Community School, also headed to the top seed in its 3A High Desert Soccer Conference tournament, returns to action Saturday, Sept. 29 with an 11 a.m. home game against the Declo Hornets at Sagewillow.
Recent games
Community School goalkeeper Kathryn Farmer (19 saves, 15 first half alone) faced a ton of pressure and caught five point-blank Wolverine shots in the first 20 minutes of Saturday's well attended clash.
A strong Wood River build-up from Michelle McMurdo to Aimee Evans to Elsa Sweek to Sam Johnson ended up with the ball on the foot of Hannah Fuller to the right of Farmer at the six-minute mark. Fuller kicked it over to former Community School player Campbell, who scored her first Wood River goal for a 1-0 lead.
The speed of Community School sophomore Nellie Brown made inroads on Wood River's solid defense. At the other end Wolverine freshman Tanner Dredge matched the speed to set up several chances.
Ongoing pressure in the Cutthroat box finally caused enough confusion that the Wolverines were awarded an indirect kick just outside the box. Evans blasted it high into the net over a wall of defenders for a 2-0 game at 27 minutes.
Right after Wood River's second goal, midfielder Makayla Cappel and Cutthroat senior sniper Cody Curran collided. Curran stayed down with a knee injury that sidelined her for the rest of the game.
It was quite a loss for the Cutthroats, its top scorers already faced with the constant marking of Wood River's Bailey Ireland and Cappel. With speedy Wolverine senior sweeper McMurdo patroling at the rear, the skilled Fish just couldn't break through.
Allowing too many corner kicks (9 Wolverine corners after the half) caught up with the Cutthroat defense of Marin Shepardson, Emily Eshman, Keller Gibson, Mattie Griswold and Kelly Hennessy right after intermission.
Keeper Farmer juggled a corner by Evans and Elgee headed it home for her third goal at 45 minutes. Three minutes later another Evans curling corner made it through the mass of bodies all by itself, 4-0.
"It was nice to see Laura and Jazz get goals," said Gvozdas, who started goalkeeper Madison Gove (8 saves) and substituted Alisa Durkheimer between the pipes after the half.
The Community School was coming off a 6-1 High Desert Conference win at Buhl Thursday. Cody Curran (15 goals season), Jessie Curran (12), Maddie duPont, Maddie-Kate Currie had single goals while sophomore midfielder Erica Eshman scored two.
Meanwhile, Wood River freshman Dredge (6 goals) scored a three-goal hat trick against Jerome Monday and Evans added two goals. Wood River outshot Jerome 50-4 and enjoyed a 7-2 edge in corners. But Jerome (0-10-0 in the series against WRHS) scored its first-ever goals. Wood River had outscored Jerome 74-0 before Monday's game in Hailey.
Taking a pass from Sam Johnson and converting an Elgee free kick, Evans made it 2-0 in the first nine minutes. Taylor Hayes short-hopped a Evans corner kick for a 3-0 lead, then a build-up from McMurdo to Dredge gave Johnson a breakaway for a 4-1 game.
Dredge's hat trick came entirely in the second half, all coming from Evans (two passes, one on a free kick). Makayla Cappel's 25-yard bomb was the other goal. Jerome scorers were Aubree Callen (penalty) plus Sarah Dixon (header off a free kick) and Bri Conrad (35-yard direct kick).
