In another challenging early-season test for the Philomath High girls soccer team, perennial power Valley Catholic pulled out a 1-0 victory Tuesday afternoon on a goal 17 minutes into the second half.
The Valiants (2-2), last season’s Class 3A state runner-up, got the winning goal in traffic off a corner kick. Making the loss sting a little more was Philomath’s inability to finish on scoring opportunities — the Warriors appeared to create more chances than their opponent.
Gallery: PHS girls soccer vs. Valley Catholic (Sept. 10, 2024)
A collection of photos from Philomath High School’s 1-0 girls soccer loss at home to Valley Catholic Tuesday.
“The aggressiveness in front of the goal has to improve both defensively and on the attack,” PHS coach Mat Phelps said. “We had corner kicks that we could have scored on and we gave up on a lot of corner kicks where it’s just bouncing around. We’ve got to clear it out and take that away.”
Philomath (0-1-1) played the game down five players.
“We have some knocks here and there that we’re recovering from,” Phelps said about the roster issue. “We’re trying to play it smart early in the season so that those players are not out the whole year. … We have some (injuries) that are carryovers from training camp; it’s just part of early-season soccer.”
Although the Warriors had more scoring chances than Valley Catholic, they were still overall somewhat rare. Kya Bolton, Sophia Bauer, Charis Bumstead and Jordyn Hood had shot opportunities near the net in the first half and Natalie Dunn had a kick from near midfield that almost slipped through the goalkeeper.
Philomath had one of its better chances in the 37th minute off a high corner kick but Valley Catholic’s goalkeeper was able to secure the ball in a moment of chaos.
“We had a lot of chances but a lack of quality chances,” Phelps said. “The cohesion’s just not there yet so we’ll be working on that in practice, communicating more and making runs for each other a little bit earlier instead of reacting to the game.”
In the second half, both teams had solid chances on corner kicks. Valley Catholic’s goal occurred in the 57th minute with several bodies in front of the net — the shot going in off a rebound.
“The first ball got knocked down and we didn’t clear it out,” Phelps said. “It could have gone either way and they got to it.”
The Warriors tried to push one in over the final few minutes — Bolton got the ball to Madyx Mooney for an opportunity that didn’t materialize, nothing resulted from a corner kick in the final seconds and a desperation shot by Aspen Russell went wide right.
Philomath’s defense had an exceptional showing.
“Always, we keep ourselves in games,” Phelps said. “I thought we did some things better tonight playing out of the back where our defenders were playing into our attackers’ feet a little bit more than we did on Thursday (vs. Gladstone).”
The Valiants hadn’t played Philomath since the 2017 state playoffs. Valley Catholic, which was then a 4A school, eliminated the Warriors 4-0 in the semifinals and went on to win the state title.
Up next for PHS will be a home game at 4 p.m. Thursday against Marist Catholic, last season’s 4A state runner-up.
“It’s a big game and I feel like we can compete but we’ve got to do the work,” Phelps said.
