Lake City headed to state

COEUR d’ALENE — In a matter of two minutes Wednesday, the Lake City Timberwolves took advantage of a couple of fast breaks to defeat the Post Falls Trojans 2-0 in a 5A Region 1 girls soccer tournament semifinal match at the Irma Anderl Soccer Complex, advancing to the state 5A tournament Oct. 21-23 at the Idaho Falls Soccer Complex.

“Our focus was really good coming out of the start of the match,” Lake City coach Matt Ruchti said. “We just wanted to get out and play a match. It’s been an odd year for this league, so we just wanted to get out and play today.”

Lake City opened the scoring in the 29th minute as senior Anna Teall took a pass from Tori Cozad, found an opening and drove in the opening goal past Post Falls goalkeeper Hannah Slinkard.

“It took a long time from when the ball hit her foot and went into the net,” Cozad said. “I was excited when she scored.”

“The momentum kind of shifted in the second half,” Ruchti said. “We had to absorb some of their pressure, but our back four were solid today. Post Falls is a good team. They came out in the second half ready to play. Becky (Thompson) is a good coach. We just put together two good sequences where we put the ball away and it was the difference.”

Cozad, who also played on last year’s regional runner-up, added that the state trip was well-deserved.

“We’re really looking forward to it as a team,” Cozad said. “It was a lot of fun last year and we’ve worked really hard to get here.”

Brittany Amburn had three saves for Lake City (7-6-3), which faces Lewiston on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Walker Field. Lewiston eliminated Coeur d’Alene 3-1 on Wednesday afternoon.

“I thought we played really good,” Amburn said. “We knew they’d come back hard in the second half and they did. We put everything together we’ve been practicing and it worked out today.”

Post Falls had chances late in the second half, but was unable to get the ball past Amburn on three shots on goal.

“Our girls were pretty nervous today,” Post Falls coach Becky Thompson said. “We kind of had a mentality where we wanted to win, but didn’t think we could. We’ve got the players to get it done, we just need to work on our mentality a little bit more.”

Post Falls (6-5-6) had wins over all three 5A IEL schools in the regular season.

“We didn’t beat these teams in our league by a fluke,” Thompson said. “Lake City played well today and their girls did well. The girls taught me a lot throughout the season, more than I taught them at times. I’m very proud of our season.”

First half — 1, LC, Anna Teall (Tori Cozad), 39:00. 2, LC, Taylor Hoffman (unassisted), 31:00. Second half — none.

Shots on goal — PF 3, LC 5.

Saves — PF, Hannah Slinkard 3. LC, Brittany Amburn 3.

Lewiston 3, Coeur d’Alene 1: Kellsi Parson scored two goals for the Bengals in the 5A Region 1 semifinal win, eliminating the Vikings from state contention.

Sophomore Kiera Turrell scored an unassisted goal in the 14th minute for Coeur d’Alene to even the match at 1-1.

Christine Woeller had three saves for Coeur d’Alene, which concludes the season 5-8-2.

First half — 1, Lew, Jolynn O’Kelley (Jamie Gates), 13:00. 2, Cd’A, Keira Turrell (unassisted), 14:00. 3, Lew, Kellsi Parson (Colleen Ames), 27:00. Second half — 4, Lew, Parson (Lacey Sumpter), 76:00.

Shots on goal — Cd’A 5, Lew 10.

Saves — Cd’A, Christine Woeller 3. Lew, Emily Moscrip 2.