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Tri County’s Savanah Thompson (21) tries to get the ball around Lakeview’s Claira Slezak (12) during their conference tournament semifinal game against the Wildcats on Wednesday. The Vikings defeated the Wildcats, 4-2. — DN Photo | Meghan Tripp
PIERSON TOWNSHIP — Of the 91 goals the Tri County girls soccer team has scored so far this season, Savanah Thompson has scored at least 71% of them.
Last year, the junior broke the school record for most goals in a season with 65 as a sophomore,
Clearly, that isn’t enough for her as she’s currently on pace to break that record once again after tying that number during Wednesday evening’s match.
“It feels good,” Thompson said. “I wish I could have beaten it tonight, but it feels really good. I’m just going to keep the intensity up. I feel like we played really well as a team tonight and I wouldn’t be able to get the amount of goals I have without my teammates.”
After a convincing mercy win over Kent City in the opening round of the Central State Activities Association (CSAA) conference tournament on Monday, the Vikings (15-4-2) found themselves in a rematch situation with Lakeview (13-3-1) in the semifinal match with the winner advancing to Friday’s championship game. During the regular season, the Vikings (5-1-1) and Wildcats (5-2-0) finished second and third, respectively, with the Vikings winning their first meeting, 4-1.
Both teams were eager to score throughout the entire first half as they were battling it out for control of the scoreboard. With solid levels of containment in the second half, the Vikings were able to hold off the Wildcats a second time this season, 4-2.
“To beat them a second time, it was going to take a lot of effort and a positive attitude,” Viking head coach Brian Campbell said. “It’s hard to keep duplicating that and it showed. They came out and scored a couple and I felt like we were on the ropes for a little bit trying to contain some of those girls who are hard to keep up with. We still pulled it out, but it takes the whole team.”
“To beat Tri County, you have to stop Savanah and score some goals,” Wildcat head coach Chris Smith noted. “We did that for a while, but she’s a great player and she scored goals. We had more chances to score more goals too, but they just didn’t go our way.”
Even though the two teams went head-to-head the first time only two weeks prior, the stakes weren’t any different back then as the Wildcats were still undefeated on the season and both teams were vying for that first-place spot in the league.
This time around, both coaches agree that it was a slightly different matchup than before.
“They had a lot of runs last time and a lot of shots last time,” Campbell said. “I told the defense that we needed to play back and containing Holli (Painter) was a huge deal in this game.”
“I think they played a little bit different formation than last time, but so did we,” Smith suggested. “Things happen during the season and you adjust accordingly. I thought for the most part that the play was pretty even back and forth. We certainly had our chances and they had their chances too.”
The Vikings started with control of the ball to which Thompson wasted no time in taking a shot at the goal that narrowly missed the outside of the goal post within the first 20 seconds.
In the following few minutes, the Vikings kept the ball in the Wildcats’ territory with Thompson leading the charge.
At the 26-minute mark, the Wildcats flipped the switch on the Vikings as junior Holli Painter knocked one into the bottom left corner of the net to give them an early lead, 1-0.
Thompson responded about 10 minutes later with a shot to the bottom left from the opposite side of the net to tie the game.
From there, it was a scoring battle between Painter and Thompson, the former scoring her second goal of the night just three minutes later to take back the lead, only for the latter to tie back up at two with five minutes to play in the half.
Just when it looked as though it was going to be a tied match at the break, Thompson pocketed her third goal of the night with a top shelf shot in the center of the net with 20 seconds to go.
Although it was the Wildcats who started the second half with the ball, Thompson made quick and scored her record-tying goal into the net, marking her fourth goal of the game with plenty of time left to potentially set a new record.
She was almost successful in doing so halfway through the second half, but an offsides call reserved the goal.
In the remaining 15 minutes of the game, the Wildcats kept pushing the offensive press onto the Vikings with Painter getting some solid shots on goal, but time ran out on the clock before they could make enough of an advance to steal the win.
“The CSAA tournament is set up so that the top teams play each other,” Smith said. “Nobody likes to lose, but it was a good matchup to get us ready for districts. We’re definitely focused on districts and we feel like that’s something that we can do some damage in and hopefully get in the final.”
“It was a lot more organized for us this time as far as keeping our positions and preparing for different formations,” Campbell said. “If we work hard and go to the ball more consistently, we usually win. We just have to keep doing that going forward.”
Both teams closed out their CSAA league schedules Friday evening in the third round of the tournament with the Wildcats facing Grant (3-5-0 CSAA, 8-8-0 overall) and the Vikings facing regular season conference champion Big Rapids (8-0-0 CSAA, 15-3-0 overall).
