Coming off their first league wins of the season over Minico on Thursday, the Wood River High School boys’ and girls’ varsity soccer teams took care of the Community School Cutthroats by identical 4-0 scores on a beautiful soccer Saturday before sizable crowds.
Jesse Cole scored twice to go with single goals by Emerson McCune and Emily Thayer as coach Doug Stouffer’s Wolverine girls won 4-0 at Sagewillow Farms with an 11-0 shooting edge over the Cutthroats after halftime.
For the game, Wood River out-shot Sun Valley 18-3. McCune, Olivia Thornton and Tate Morell had assists, and sophomore goalkeeper Molly Whittington recorded her third shutout in four contests. Cutthroat “Player of the Game” was Kate Rathfon.
Stouffer said, “The girls never lost their patience. They stayed with the game plan until the final whistle.”
On the Hailey pitch, freshman Jose Quinonez had two goals in only his second varsity start leading the Wood River boys past the Cutthroats 4-0. Carlos A. Gonzalez and Sage Kelly were the other scorers, while Kelly and Guillermo Flores had assists.
Wood River senior goalkeeper Kyle Weller earned his second shutout for coach Luis Monjaras. Cutthroat “Man of the Match” was Trenor Gould. The Wolverine junior varsity also defeated the Community School 3-0 Saturday morning.
Monjaras said about the annual meeting of the two Blaine County teams, “It was pretty even during the first half. The Community School seemed to be controlling the situation. They made one mistake and Jose capitalized for a 1-0 lead at half. In the second half they seemed to get tired and we took advantage.”
Cutthroat coach Richard Whitelaw said, “Wood River kind of wore us down. But we’re glad we had the game. It was a great learning experience, and a grand occasion.”
The Wood River boys (3-2-0, 1-0-0 league) visited Twin Falls (1-4-2, 0-1-1) for a Great Basin Conference game Tuesday—the Bruins coming off a 4-2 victory Saturday at Mountain Home. Wood River’s girls (4-1-0, 1-0-0) hosted three-time defending GBC champion Twin Falls (4-2-0, 1-0-0) Tuesday on the Hailey pitch.
WRHS girls finish strong
At Sagewillow Farms Saturday, the Cutthroat girls gave Wood River all it could handle for most of the first half.
Kate Rathfon’s marking of Wood River’s Jesse Cole was important, and so was the Cutthroat defense of Emily Siegel, Sara Runkel, Anik Zarkos and Sydney Hagenbuch.
For Wood River, sophomore defender Megan Johnston prevented several Cutthroat threats and got help from Rory Cole and Kenya Schott.
It was Wolverine freshman Emerson McCune who turned the game around after going to the sideline for a several minutes with a bloody nose.
With three minutes left in the scoreless first half, she chased down a ball along the right flank, lost it, circled around and recovered the ball, and then immediately let loose with a left-footed blast from just inside the midfield line. It sailed over the head of Cutthroat keeper Olivia Ott and into the back of the net.
That goal giving Wood River a 1-0 halftime lead seemed to turn the tide—and the Wolverines didn’t lose a step after senior Brigette Thomas re-injured her balky ankle and exited the game at 51 minutes. Replacing her was freshman Emily Thayer, who ended up with her first-ever varsity goal to end the scoring.
Wood River started getting to the balls more quickly than the Cutthroats, and it showed with a series of attacks made on the Sun Valley box.
McCune made a centering pass into the box at 55 minutes. Jesse Cole picked up the loose ball, took her time and hit the top corner for a 2-0 lead. Three minutes later, a nice give-and-go started by Jesse Cole ended up in a 3-0 lead when Olivia Thornton made a return feed to Cole.
Emily Thayer’s goal ripped into the top corner from 22 yards came on a pass from Tate Morell as the minutes ticked away. Keeper Ott had no chance, but she was very good throughout the game, making five saves in each half.
Hailey boys keep Cutthroats in check
Wood River may have won Saturday’s game with the Community School by holding the potent Cutthroat 9.0 goals per game offense completely in check during the first half of Saturday’s match-up in Hailey.
Sweeper Jon Scott led the defensive charge flanked by two young backs, sophomore Nathan Lambert and freshman Taylor Koth. They limited the Cutthroats to just two shots in the first half, neither of which forced keeper Kyle Weller to make a save.
Inserted for the first time in Thursday’s home win over Minico, when he scored a goal, freshman Jose Quinonez slipped behind the Cutthroat defense in the 30th minute giving Wood River a 1-0 lead at intermission before a crowd estimated at over 500 fans.
“We put Jose into that last game against Minico for the first time. And he wasn’t scared at all,” said Monjaras.
The coach added that Quinonez is related by family, by smaller stature and by attacking ability to former Wolverine forward Luis “Freddy” Tamayo, who scored nine goals as a senior in 2009 and was named a second-team All-Great Basin forward.
In the second half Wood River outshot the Cutthroats 10-3 by hustling to all-important second balls, by fine-tuning its short passes, by getting to gaps, and by finding their passing connections at the top of the box.
Best example was a four-player passing connection that resulted in the second goal in the 70th minute. Daniel Graves passed to Drew Kaminski, who gave it to Sage Kelly, who slipped it past the Cutthroat defense and sent Carlos Gonzalez in for a goal.
Both Lambert and Scott blocked Cutthroat shots in the 72d minute, and Cutthroat goalkeeper Willis Sanchez-duPont (8 saves) made a clutch save on Kelly’s attempt at 74 minutes after a nice pass from Graves. But a crafty pass by Guillermo Flores put Quinonez in for the third goal.
Sage Kelly closed the scoring in the 80th, in alone.
Wins over Minico
Wood River’s teams earned their first Great Basin Conference league wins of the 2014 season Thursday over Minico.
Playing at home, the Wood River boys got all the goals they needed in the first half and edged the Minico Spartans 3-1, while the girls amassed a 7-0 halftime lead and breezed 13-0 over Minico at Rupert.
Wood River’s boys snapped a two-game losing skid on goals by freshman Jose Quinonez in the 27th minute, junior Danny Graves in the 34th minute and junior Yuri McClure in the 35th minute. Minico finally scored on a long shot in the 80th minute.
Monjaras said, “We continue to work on our offense. We out-shot them 17-7. In these situations we need to capitalize more. Overall it was a much better performance. Each game we are improving and we continue to develop our system of play.”
At Minico, sophomore Jesse Cole (2 assists) and senior Olivia Thornton (2 assists) each scored three goals for the visiting Wolverines Thursday and freshman Emerson McCune (1 assist) added two goals for the winners.
Singles came from Samantha Sutton (2 assists), Ashley Carnduff (1 assist), Brigette Thomas, Megan Murphy and Lucy Brannon. Cole’s final goal for a hat trick was a penalty kick in the 78th minute.
Coach Stouffer said, “The score was 7-0 at halftime. I counted 26 shots taken for us. Minico did not have any shots and rarely crossed the half offensively.
“Samantha broke the ice scoring in the 10th minute and then the goals started to fall in bunches.
“Olivia scored two goals in the next five minutes followed by a quick goal from Jesse Cole in the 16th from a slick pass from Emerson McCune. Emerson scored in the 21st and Brigette scored a header in the 23rd. Lucy Brannon finished the scoring in the first half.
“In the second half, Olivia got her third goal in the 50th. Emerson and Ashley scored soon after with Jesse scoring her second goal in 68th. Megan scored in the 73rd.”
The coach added, “Although this game was not near the intensity as the first three games of the season, we did use this game to practice our touch particularly in the defense.”
Wood River sophomore defend-er Nathan Lambert (left) tries to stop Roger Figge of the Community School during Saturday’s well-attended non-conference game on the Hailey field. Wood River prevailed 4-0. Photo by Roland Lane
