Chiefs soccer beats Wenatchee at home

McKenna Walker keeps the ball in play in the first half of the match against the Panthers

The Chiefs Caylah Lunning was in position to score but was whistled for being offside in the opening moments of the match last night at Lions Field. Megan Roughan closes in on the action.

by Bob Kirkpatrick & Herald Sports Editor
| September 20, 2012 9:00 PM

The Chiefs Caylah Lunning was in position to score but was whistled for being offside in the opening moments of the match last night at Lions Field. Megan Roughan closes in on the action.

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake and Wenatchee battled to a 0-0 score in the first half of soccer action at Lions Field last night. But the Chiefs came alive in the second half of play two record two goals to blank the Panthers 2-0.

The victory improves Moses Lake to 2-0 in the CBBN and 3-2 overall.

"It was nice to get a win and get back on track," coach Ric Char said. "We were hoping to avoid a slump after the two losses last week and did just that as the girls put on a fine display of courage against Wenatchee."

The Chiefs were unable to produce a score in the first 40 minutes of play, but threatened several times, having two goals called back on offside penalties.

"We put a lot of pressure on them in the first half of play," Char said. "Out goal is to control the tempo and speed of play. When we do that, we put ourselves in a good position to win."

Char said the offside penalties were more a matter of miss timing than errors made on the teams part.

"It's really kind of hard to judge how fast our forwards Caylah (Lunning) and Alysha (Overland) are," he said. "But we can't expect them to just wait for our girls to get them the ball. So we'll work on getting our midfielders to become faster to keep up with them."

The second half of play saw Moses Lake put a quick score on the board as Alysha Overland (Walker assist) hit a rocket of a shot from 15-yards out to give the Chiefs a 1-0 lead at the 42 minute-mark.

Alysha's twin sister Stephanie recorded the Chiefs second goal of the match (A. Overland assist) with 19 minutes left in the contest to push the score to 2-0 in favor of Moses Lake.

The Chiefs are back on the pitch Saturday as the team travels to Eastmont for a makeup game that was postponed last week due to poor air quality as a result of area fires.

The game could be shifted to Lions Field at 1 p.m. if the conditions haven't improved enough to play the match in Wenatchee.

"Eastmont is a tough team ... they beat Wenatchee 4-1," Char said. "If we do play the game on their turf, we expect a tough match on the smaller field because we won't be able to utilize our speed."