Soccer: Central Valley girls snap out of it, crush Mead to earn state berth

Central Valley girls soccer team, the one that lost to Mead 2-0 for the district championship a week ago, was an imposter.

The real Bears (16-2 overall) took care of business winning twice during the week, including a 4-0 throttling of Mead Saturday afternoon, and earning their fifth straight trip to state.

“Last week we were really disappointed,” coach Andres Monrroy said following Saturday’s dominant performance. “It was not CV soccer. The girls recognized that.”

The Bears built a 3-0 lead, scoring in the final four minutes of the first half with, two goals coming a minute apart right before the half’s end.

Kelsey Turnbow had back-to-back goals at the 36th and 38th minutes, essentially assisting herself on the latter when her penalty kick ricocheted off Mead’s goalie back to the GSL scoring leader who drove it home.

“That was weird,” Bowman said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Chloe Scholtz was impenetrable in goal smothering everything that came her way and ending with seven saves. On one, she grabbed the ball in a crowd at the top of the goal mouth. She later made an incomprehensible stop with her head to deflect the Panther’s last best shot to score, the ball hitting the goal upright and bouncing away.

“I can’t even explain how,” she said. “It smacked me straight in the face.”

CV took it to Mead from the outset, a far cry from the district final. Kasey Ames and Megan Dimmler directed the attack from midfield and the scorers did the rest.

“Kasey deserves a lot,” Bowman said, deferring credit. “She scrapped for the ball and poked it in there.”

Bowman first drove the ball from left of the goal into the right goal corner for a 1-0 lead. Her second came following a hand ball infraction. Kaelyn Barnes put the Bears up 3-0 shortly thereafter. A three-goal lead is tough to overcome in soccer. Against CV it’s nearly impossible.

“Chloe was amazing and (teammates) were able to find Kelsey’s feet,” Monrroy said. “I felt like we dominated from the beginning. I can’t even explain how proud I am of the team.”

Mead finished 11-8.

Earlier in the week the defending state champs beat University 3-0. They are scheduled to host their first state match this week.

Collin Cremers scored two second-half goals and St. George’s blanked Northwest Christian 2-0 in the 2B/1B regional championship match at St. George’s.

With the win, St. George’s (16-0) will host Waitsburg-Prescott or Trout Lake next weekend in the State 2B/1B quarterfinals. Northwest Christian (11-6) will travel to the west side for their state opener next weekend against Friday Harbor.