Klahowya defeats Riverside, wins title

2A girls soccer

The tears fell, but they were washed away as much by the rain as the sense of achievement by the Riverside Rams players.

Making their third consecutive final four appearance, the Rams lost 2-0 to the Klahowya Eagles in the State 2A girls soccer championship game Saturday night at Federal Way Memorial field.

"We're such a young team. I think we really excited just to get this far," said Larissa Mueller, one of just four seniors on Riverside's 21-player roster.

The Rams were trying to equal their state championship performance of the 1997 season. They placed third last year.

"I feel we played excellent as a team," said Riverside senior Jamie Rizzuto. "As long as we played as hard as we could, that's all you could ask for. You can't be disappointed about that."

Riverside finished the season with a 17-4 record. The Rams' previous three losses were to Greater Spokane League teams.

The win lifts Klahowya, a school in just its third year of existence, to the .500 mark at 10-10-1. Several of its losses came to 3A teams.

"It takes some of the sting out of it, losing to a class team," Riverside coach Kevin Moon said, referring to the sportsmanship displayed by both teams despite the aggressive play.

Klahowya, also with just four seniors, counted on its youth to provide the scoring. The Eagles' goals came off the feet of freshmen Jessica Hicks and Nicole Zygmontowicz.

The first came with 16 minutes, 45 seconds left in the first half. During a scramble in the Riverside penalty box, the ball bounced to Hicks' feet. Hicks, somehow left unmarked, shot it past the Riverside keeper for the goal.

"We've hardly ever been down, so that was a new experience for us," Mueller said.

Riverside's best chance in the first half came moments later when Klahowya keeper Catherine Hoffman couldn't hold on to a hard shot by Rizzuto. Hoffman barely gathered in the ball before Riverside forward Jenny Svennungsen could get a foot to it.

Riverside also had a couple of scoring opportunities early in the second half, but had trouble getting past a tough Eagles defense. Rizzuto set up Mueller with a centering pass at the top of the Klahowya penalty box. Before Mueller could set up for a shot, Eagles defender Jennifer Beall brought her down with a hard, ball-clearing tackle.

Although Riverside controlled much of the play, Klahowya still managed a 6-5 shot advantage in the second half. The defensive play of Rachelle Rolle, Erica Langond and Beall and Hoffman's goalkeeping denied Riverside several potential goals.

"She came up with two big saves," Moon said of the Eagles keeper.

The first came when she stopped a 12-yard shot from Anna Bowers with 28 minutes left to play. Klahowya went up 2-0 with a shot from Zygmontowicz that ricocheted off a Riverside defender and into the Rams goal with 19:15 left in the game.

"We knew they were going to be aggressive. We stepped it up," Rolle said. "That was the most aggressive we played. It was a championship game and we had freshmen scoring goals and going hard to the ground."

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