Cowgirls win league soccer title - Central Oregonian

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LON AUSTIN/CENTRAL OREGONIAN

After struggling to score goals all season, the Crook County High School girls soccer team exploded for seven goals on Saturday.

The Cowgirls blasted the Roosevelt Roughriders 7-2 to earn the Special District I league championship, and the score could have been worse. Crook County had three goals disallowed in the match.

“I was pleased,” head coach Rich Abrams said. “Obviously we are not this massively passing team that moves the ball around yet, but we are getting the ball to the right places. We are being almost clinical in where our passes are going.”

The Cowgirls, who had scored just four goals the entire rest of the season capitalized on Roughrider mistakes, scoring their first goal just three minutes into the

The goal was the start of a monster game for Loper, who finished with five goals on the afternoon.

Roosevelt tried briefly to match the Cowgirls scoring onslaught. The Roughriders scored midway through the first half to tie the match 1-1.

However, the Cowgirls responded with three more first half goals to take a commanding 4-1 lead by the end of the first half.

Aneisha Mix-Thompson scored the first goal of her career with 14 minutes remaining in the half. Then Loper added a pair of goals in just over a minute in the last five minutes of the half.

Loper scored her fourth goal early in the second half to give Crook County a 5-1 lead. Roosevelt earned their second goal midway through the half, before Loper and Miranda Smith added insurance goals for Crook County late in the half.

“We have been practicing passes from the side for three days now,” Abrams said. “I was glad to see something come from that.”

The victory shows just how resilient the Cowgirls are. The team lost 11-0 to the Mountain View Cougars, before rebounding for the big league victory.

“I don’t think it was hard to come back from the Mountain View game at all,” Abrams said. “We have a great bunch of girls. They didn’t think about it they just moved ahead and kept practicing, knowing that we could beat Roosevelt.”

With the victory, the Cowgirls raised their record to 2-9 overall and 2-0 in Special District I. With the loss the Roughriders fell to 3-11 overall, and 0-2 in league play.

In spite of the losing record, the Cowgirls still have an opportunity to reach the state playoffs. The team will go on the road on Saturday for a play-in game against an opponent that is yet to be determined. The Cowgirl’s opponent will most likely be either the first or second place team from the Greater Oregon League.

La Grande has clinched the Greater Oregon League title with an 8-1 league mark and a 10-2-1 overall record, while Ontario is in second place (5-2-2 in league, 8-3-2 overall).

“We don’t care who we play,” Abrams said. “We just want a game. We just want to be there.”