Sodorff, West Valley on task so far in state soccer playoffs

West Valley senior defender Jordyn Sodorff was given a new task. Once fulfilled, she and the Eagles’ soccer team were headed to the State 2A final four.

WV plays Burlington-Edison at 10 a.m. Friday at Lakewood’s Harry Lang Stadium in the school’s first soccer state semifinal.

“I’m so excited,” Sodorff said on Tuesday. “It’s my senior year and this kind of tops it off.”

Sodorff was given the unenviable job of marking one of Cheney’s best players to give the Eagles a chance at beating their league rival in last Saturday’s state quarterfinal.

“Basically, I was her shadow,” Sodorff said. “I felt like ‘Casper, the Not So Friendly Ghost.’ It could have been our last game and I wasn’t going to give up.”

The match ended in a 0-0 standoff, and the Eagles won 6-5 in shootout penalty kicks.

Playing defense in soccer is akin to being a football lineman. Without the luxury of statistics, media exposure is limited. Sodorff’s play and that of others was significant, said coach Shelli Totton.

“We wouldn’t be good without everybody,” she said.

From goalkeeper and defenders (four straight shutouts) to midfielders and forwards, every player was linked in WV’s late-season run and overall 16-4 record, Sodorff said.

Sodorff is one of four seniors on the team. Lacey Nordby, Missy Carey and Nicole Hamlin are the others. All are third-year varsity players joined by gifted youngsters who sent the Eagles to state last year and now are in the finals weekend.

“I feel like we are a big part of the team leadership and am glad we have this chance for the younger players to have a taste of it,” Sodorff said.

Sodorff said she has played soccer for a long time, but was a “stupid freshman” who made the decision to try volleyball when she entered high school.

She switched back to soccer as a sophomore, initially as a midfielder, before moving to defense.

The team adopted a song, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” as part of season-long motivation themes. It took continued belief to get over the mental block of a Cheney team that had beaten them three times previously, Sodorff said.

“We sat as a group in the assistant coach’s room and figured out what we needed to get the spark back,” Sodorff said. “Once we beat them the first time, we started believing that we could do it again. I don’t know what it was, but it finally clicked.”