Toppenish Wildcats shut out Huskies
Jessie Villareal battles for the ball against an East Valley defender April 14. The Huskies play the Red Devils Saturday at home at 1 p.m. in the first round of the regional tournament.
TOPPENISH - The Toppenish Wildcats stuck early and often in the first half of action as they shut out Othello 3-0 Tuesday to claim the CWAC district championship.
The win made it 16 in a row for Toppenish (17-1) and advances the Wildcats directly to state. The team will host a first round match May 15.
The loss drops Othello to the No. 2 seed at the regional tournament, which means the Huskies (15-3) will host a CWAC-GNL match Saturday at 1 p.m. against the Red Devils from East Valley
"We did not come out ready to play the first 25 minutes as Toppenish scored there three goals in a short span of time," coach Bernie Garza said. "We tried to respond responded back and had some shots go off the crossbar, but we could not score."
Eric Lopez (Victor Lopez) got Toppenish on the board at the eight minute-mark to put the Wildcats up 1-0. Victor Lopez (Jonathan Lopez) made it 2-0 at the 20th minute of play. Toppenish got one more goal before the half by Servando Fuentes (J. Lopez) at the 25 minute-mark to push the score to 3-0.
"I told the guys at halftime that if we could shut Toppenish out in the second half, we could score one a goal at a time and eventually catch them," Garza said. "But that didn't happen. Our offense was frustrated and at times just flat out quit and stopped running. It was very frustrating as I know we have very skilled players, but today they had no energy. Toppenish showed no mercy as they attacked all game long. We were just lucky Martel (Saucedo) had a great second half or we could've of lost 6-0."
Garza said the Huskies had trouble matching the aggressive play by the Wildcats
"Every time they attacked they made us pay for it," he said. "And when we attacked, they took us out with hard fouls and ended up with five yellow cards. They did whatever it took to win and unfortunately, we did not."
Saucedo had 10 saves on the match for Othello. Oliver Sanchez recorded five saves for the Wildcats.
If Othello wins its match Saturday, the Huskies will advance to the first round of the state playoffs Tuesday.
"If we do, we'll most likely play Cheney, which us currently 16-0," Garza said. "So we will have our work cut out for us."