Southridge downs Arlington 1-0, advances to 3A state soccer final

For the second consecutive year, the Southridge Suns have advanced to the Class 3A girls state soccer finals.

The Suns beat Arlington 1-0 in a Friday afternoon semifinal at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup.

Southridge (19-2) will play Seattle Prep (21-0-1) — a 2-1 winner over Edmonds-Woodway (18-1-2) in the other Friday semifinal — for the title at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The Suns won a defensive battle over the Eagles, and it was Kendall Pope who scored the match’s lone goal.

About two minutes before halftime, Pope took a pass from teammate Haley Thomas on a free kick and put the ball into the net.

Thomas’ free kick was about 18 yards out, right of the net. She kicked it down to about 6 yards out, where Pope met the ball and put it in past Arlington keeper Kat Sanchez.

“Her timing of her run was perfect,” said Thomas. “I can’t even imagine a more perfect run from her.”

Pope returned the compliment.

“It was a perfect ball with Haley,” said Pope. “She’s always tries to find me in that situation, or go for the taller players so they can try to head it in. I timed that run well and just kicked the ball in.”

That gave Southridge some added confidence going into halftime.

“That first half, we played really well,” said Southridge coach Greg Sambrano. “The whole team did a good job of pressing, creating a lot of turnovers.”

But it wasn’t over yet.

“It definitely was nice to be on top, but you can’t be complacent with a 1-0 lead,” said Thomas. “We just knew they would come out and play hard. So we tried to be aggressive still.”

Sambrano agreed.

“I told them at halftime I thought they played outstanding,” he said. “I told them we needed to keep the pressure up and get another goal. We needed to get a second goal.”

That didn’t happen, and Arlington came out in the second half aggressive. Yet the Eagles could only get one shot on goal during the entire contest.

“We kind of weathered the storm,” said Sambrano. “And those last 10 minutes we kind of pushed back and got aggressive.”

The Suns had a few chances to score in the first half, dominating possession.

Savannah Brown’s corner kick in the first half skimmed off of the crossbar.

But Arlington’s Sanchez, who anchors a defense that posted nine shutouts this season, kept the ball out of the net.

Didn’t matter. Southridge’s defense was equal to the task, if not more.

“We heard about (Arlington midfielder Olivia Larson) and how she’s a huge threat,” said Thomas. “We made sure where she was, we covered her. We definitely had quite a bit of opportunities (to score). But I think we did pretty well defensively.”

Arlington falls to 17-5 and will play Edmonds-Woodway at 10 a.m. today for third place.

Southridge and Seattle Prep last met each other in the state semifinals in 2010, when Prep won 2-0.

Class 1A

CASCADE (LEAVENWORTH) 4, CONNELL 0: Making their first Class 1A state semifinal appearance in six seasons, the Eagles lost to the Kodiaks at Shoreline Stadium.

Morgan Smith stopped six shots for the Eagles (15-6), who will play for third/fourth place against King’s at 10 a.m. today in Shoreline.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 9:08 PM with the headline "Southridge downs Arlington 1-0, advances to 3A state soccer final."