For the first time in Olympic College soccer history, the women’s team made it to the postseason.
Because of a loss to Bellevue in the last game of the regular season, the Rangers entered the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges tournament in third place.
On Wednesday the Rangers hit the road to play against Shoreline for the first round.
Due to sickness, three of OC’s starters: Rachel Hardin, Rebeka Kitchen and Nataly Smith were out for the game. The games started off slow, both Shoreline and OC had their opportunities to score, but couldn’t find the back of the net.
“We need to slow it down in the middle,” said assistant coach Lee Christie during halftime. “It’s OK to gamble, if we don’t shoot we can’t score.”
At the start of the second half, Shoreline caught an early break. When a long shot took a hop on the wet grass and skipped past the OC defense, Shoreline was able to finish giving them a 1-0 lead.
The Rangers bounced right back no more than five minutes after the Shoreline goal. Hannah Marshall gave a pass to Ali Brown who shot the ball off the pole and into the net tying the game at 1-1.
After that goal, the Rangers dominated possession. Vannesa Friday took a shot but the Shoreline goalkeeper made a diving save. The Rangers had several chances to score but could not finish and the end of regulation ended in a 1-1 tie.
There were two ten-minute golden goal sudden death rounds separated by a two-minute break. Neither team scored and the game was left to penalty kicks.
At the end of regulation Christie again gave his team a speech.
“We get out in front every game and then cough it up, but this time we were behind so lets take this one,” said Christie.
During the first golden goal, Lacy Skelly had a shot that was blocked and the Rangers again had chances but couldn’t score. During the two-minute break before the second golden goal it was Jordan Thon who tried to fire the team up.
“Lets do this now, I don’t want to go to (penalty kicks), lets finish this now and go home,” said Thon.
During the second golden goal, OC again had opportunities to score on corner kicks but couldn’t finish.
Each team selected five players to take the kicks. OC went first and missed the first shot. Shoreline however made their first shot. Again the Rangers missed, and Shoreline didn’t making it 2-0 on penalty kicks. After the Rangers missed their third shot and Shoreline made theirs, it was over and the Rangers great season came to an end.
“We should have won, we were the better team,” said assistant coach Ryan Moss. “We had our chances, just couldn’t finish, it was a (bad) way to lose, but when it comes down to PKs it’s anyone’s game.”
