CHIMACUM — East Jefferson put together its best performance of the season in knocking off an depleted Sequim girls soccer team in a 4-1 upset at Chimacum High School.
“They played the best game I’ve seen them play,” East Jefferson coach Rob Cantley said. “I think this can be momentum building. Each game we have gotten better at executing the style of play we are trying to do, and yesterday was a perfect example of it. We had intriciate passing connections, and we were aggressive in creating scoring chances.”
It was the second win for Class 1A East Jefferson (2-3) against Class 2A Olympic League North Division competition this season.
Sequim coach Derek Vander Velde said his side struggled with eight of his usual 11 starters out due to a combination of injuries and early-semester grade checks and a small bench.
“It was a rough day in the soccer world for Sequim, but we will have our issues worked out before Saturday,” Vander Velde said.
“I think the Chimacum-Port Townsend team played really well. For us, I think I counted just on my backline on rotation — one person who was in there the entire time, and we had another six players to rotate in.”
Cantley said that in some matches against stronger squads such as Port Angeles, his team had done well in moving the ball up the field toward the goal, but the wheels would fall off close to the opposition’s goal.
“Before, we had gotten it right up to the penalty box area, but then we’d get too much dribbling and not enough passing or attempting to create goal-scoring opportunities,” Cantley said. “But we created a lot of scoring chances against Sequim.”
Freshman Ava Shiflett opened the scoring for East Jefferson.
“I think that came down to a mistake on the goalie’s part; I don’t think she knew she could pick the ball up, and she kept it at her feet,” Cantley said. “Ava charged it down and scored. She’s relentless in trying to get the ball off of people.”
Cantley said Shiflett set up East Jefferson’s second score on an assist to Savannah Hoffman.
“Ava provided an immediate assist on the second goal. There was a good passage of play from right to left, and she sent a good cross in to Savannah Hoffman, and Savannah scored her first high school goal,” he said.
Sequim got a goal back in the second half to trail 2-1 on a goal by Alliyah Weber, but Cantley said his team had the answers on offense and defense.
“They scored when it was 2-0, so naturally that’s a time when you start to think the team is in trouble of allowing the tying goal, but we picked up the third and fourth goal pretty close in succession and that helped us put it to bed,” Cantley said.
Irish Mattern notched the last two goals for East Jefferson.
“Those were kind of individual efforts in picking up the ball at midfield and hitting two shots from outside the 18-yard box that found the goal,” Cantley said. “Iris normally plays the defensive midfield position, and she was wanting to get forward more, and we gave her the freedom.
“And defensively, we were defending well and limited them to very few clear-cut chances.”
Sorina Johnston and Katie Clark combined in net for East Jefferson.
“We’ve been talking to them a lot about self-belief and that the scoreline doesn’t always reflect how well we played,” Cantley said. “We have Olympic on the grass Saturday out in Chimacum, and we think we can play with them.”
East Jefferson lost 4-0 to Olympic earlier in the season on the Trojan’s home turf and 24 hours after playing an even tougher Klahowya team.
Sequim (2-3) will look to get revenge for a 2-1 loss to rival Port Angeles when the two squads meet up Saturday at 12:45 p.m. at Peninsula College’s Wally Sigmar Field.
Volleyball
Sequim 3, East Jefferson 0
CHIMACUM — The Wolves’ serving returned in earnest as Sequim earned the sweep 25-14, 25-4, 25-9.
“We kind of knew going on that we needed to work on our quick offense, and we also got back on track with our serving at 96 percent with 19 aces,” Wolves coach Jennie Webber Heilman said.
It was a game of scoring runs for Sequim.
Kalli Wiker had a six-point run in the first game and a seven-point run in the third game and ended up serving 17 for 18 with four aces, along with 24 assists and five digs.
Amanda Weller served on a five-point run and a seven-point run in the third and finished 17 of 18 with four aces and five kills.
McKenna Hastings had a 13-point service run with six aces to close out the second game.
Hastings was a perfect 20 for 20 with seven aces along with three perfect passes and seven digs.
Allie Gale added a six-point run in the second game and served eight for eight with two aces and 10 digs.
Kendall Hastings totaled 13 kills, and Jolene Vaara had seven kills and Sequim’s only stuff block.
Sequm (5-1, 5-2) visits Port Angeles at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-406-0674 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
