Bergquist's goal gives Tumwater win in girls soccer

By Aaron Wasser | For The Olympian • Published October 08, 2008

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TUMWATER – The Tumwater Thunderbirds' girls soccer team entered Tuesday's game against rival Black Hills possessing the Evergreen Conference's most potent offense, while the Wolves' defense can take the majority of the credit for their unbeaten start to the season.

The match did feature a great offense and a great defense. Only now it looks like both belong to the T-Birds.

A Katie Bergquist goal in the 26th minute was the difference as Tumwater earned a 1-0 win and moved into a tie for first place with Black Hills.

It was the Wolves' (7-1-1, 6-1) first loss of the season. It was Tumwater's sixth consecutive shutout victory. The T-Birds (7-2, 6-1) have exploded offensively since dropping back-to-back games, putting up 27 goals to the opposition's none.

"That kind of, I think, just sort of woke us up a little bit," Tumwater coach Stephanie Hannukaine said of the early losses. "We have a lot of talent on our team, so our challenge was to see where we could best utilize our talent."

Bergquist certainly was in the right place at the right time for her fifth goal of the season. After a bit of a scramble in front of the Black Hills goal, junior Caitlin Calnan dished the ball off to Bergquist and the sophomore was able to sneak it past Black Hills goalie Ivy Davison through the bottom left corner of the goal.

"She was able to kind of pick up the peanuts there," Tumwater coach Stephanie Hannukaine said of the game's lone score. "In a game that's this close, the little details are what makes or breaks a game. So we've been working an awful lot on the details and the inches. We knew that playing a team like Black Hills that would be the difference in the win or loss for us."

"Inches" is a good word to describe Tuesday's affair. It's cliche to say this one could have gone either way, but both teams had legitimate scoring opportunities throughout the night.

"A bounce here, a bounce there, all of a sudden it's completely different," Black Hills coach Frank Soiza said.

The Wolves hit the crossbar four minutes into the game, they didn't get a potential penalty kick call that Soiza and the Wolves fans in attendance felt they deserved, and they came up painfully short in a second half that saw them generate seven shots on goal — five of which came during the first 15 minutes after the half.

With the exception of the outcome, it was a typical Black Hills game. Five of the Wolves' eight games this season have been decided by a single goal. The defense kept Tumwater within reach, as did Davison, who added five more saves to her total, but the bounces did not go Black Hills' way.

Is Soiza anxious to see how his team will bounce back after its first loss?

"I'm not concerned at all," he said. "They're a great bunch of girls they know where the right place is. I told them before the game, 'This is just one game, there's a whole bunch of season left.' "

As good as the Wolves' defense has been this season, the T-Bird's defenders have been otherworldly. Tumwater has allowed just two goals the entire year; both losses were by 1-0 scores.

Goalie Isabel Haynie added three more stops Tuesday, and Tumwater defenders were able to withstand Black Hills' second-half shooting barrage.

The ability to stop the opposition has become a source of pride for the T-Birds.

"We like to swing the ball around a lot through the defenders," said Calnan. "We all have total confidence in each other, and we're just relaxed in the back and that really helps out a lot."

Tumwater will try to exact a little revenge in its next contest Thursday when it takes on one of the two teams to which it lost earlier this season, Centralia.