The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears girls soccer team ended their regular season schedule at Ketchikan, tying the Lady Kings 1-1 on Friday and winning handily 3-0 Saturday.
“Sometimes you just don’t have your day,” JDHS coach Matt Dusenberry said of Friday’s match. “We still had 20 shots on goal and had several break-a-ways. We just have not figured out how to unlock the uniqueness of how they have their keeper play.”
Ketchikan moves their keeper up towards the switch of the pitch when action is in the Lady Kings attacking side. Opponents have struggled with putting shots on goal from distance to keep Kayhi honest.
“She is pretty mobile and outside the box a lot,” Dusenberry said. “She runs around and she had some great saves as well but, yeah, we had opportunities. Several of them. We hit some wide, hit some cross bars and things like that.”
Friday’s final game score was the misfortune of own goals by both teams, with deflected shots in the box settling in the net.
Crimson Bears freshman forward Peyton Wheeler was credited with JDHS’ score as she put the shot in that deflected off a Kayhi back. Junior midfielder Cadence Plummer earned the team’s Hard Hat Award for match play.
On Saturday Plummer scored twice with assists by junior defender Finley Sullivan and Wheeler.
“We still created a lot of opportunities but this time we were able to put in three,” Dusenberry said. “We actually had in the second game two assists from our back line. Just some long perfect nice diagonal balls. Finley and Natalie (sophomore midfielder Natalie Travis) both had assists from the back line. Just fantastic balls right in front of somebody.”
JDHS also called for switches that moved four different players around at a time and found more balls on frame with Plummer and Wheeler attacking.
“In the regular season, for me, I am always trying to think about, hopefully, we qualify for state so can we put ourselves into unique situations that maybe we will be in at state,” said Dusenberry. “To utilize the regular season and get some more experience so we are not asking the kids to do something completely out of the norm come state time. We change formations, put kids in different positions.”
Wheeler scored the third goal assisted by Travis. Sullivan earned the team’s Hard Hat Award.
JDHS also got an impressive offensive showing from junior varsity sophomore Parker Bowman who tallied six goals over the weekend in JV action, the Crimson Bears won 4-1 and tied 4-4.
The JDHS girls are the No. 4 seed and open against No. 5 Homer at 3 p.m. at West High. Their bracket side features No. 1 Kenai against No. 8 Nikiski. The other half of the bracket has No. 3 North Pole facing No. 6 Grace Christian and No. 2 Soldotna playing No. 7 Houston.
The tournament runs through Saturday.
