Clark Fork triumphs over Stevensville

The Clark Fork Soccer Alliance had a great start to its fall season with both local teams chalking up home victories.

The boys U19 team defeated the Stevensville Yellowjackets 2-0 at Amundson Sports Complex last Tuesday afternoon. "For our first full game I was encouraged by our ability to move the ball as a team as this usually takes time to develop," said Thompson Falls resident Josh Allday, the team's head coach.

The Clark Fork Soccer Alliance boys and girls had games scheduled a week earlier, but they were canceled due to lightning. On Tuesday, the boys went up against the Yellowjackets high school varsity and junior varsity players, which had already collected two wins and two losses. The game was scoreless in the first half, though Clark Fork Soccer Alliance nearly scored several times. The Yellowjackets almost had a point in the first half, but a diving stop by keeper Jacob Howell blocked the shot.

In the second half, Jonny Felix of Clark Fork Soccer Alliance had the sole scores of the game and his goals were within five minutes of each other, hitting his last mark only about 12 minutes before the end of the game. The 16-year-old Felix has been playing soccer since he was 8 years old. The boys Clark Fork Soccer Alliance is composed of 23 players from 13-18 years old from Thompson Falls and Plains. They started practicing last month.

"I was also impressed with the play of our back line and our center defensive midfielder Lucas Allday. They were able to neutralize the opponent's attack and quickly reorganize to switch to attack," the coach said. "For a year that we are rebuilding, this was a promising first game," said Allday.

The U19 girls also left the field with a victory at Amundson Sports Complex that day, snatching a 6-1 win from the Yellowjackets junior varsity girls. The Yellowjackets' only point was in the first half and was a penalty shot that got by keeper Ava Lawyer, who also had four saves in the game.

Claire Wrobleski chalked up the most points with four goals, followed by Jordan Costner and Solveig Nygaard each scoring once. The second half keeper, Ocean Hyde, had six saves. "Ocean Hyde is our new goalkeeper this year and she deserves a lot of credit for a shutout second half because Stevensville came out at us hard," said head coach Nick Lawyer. "But she is very calm, and is great with the ball at her feet; she's a modern goalkeeper, a midfielder with gloves who is good at moving the ball around the field," added Lawyer, a coach for some 12 years.

Lawyer has 19 girls on the team from Plains, St. Regis and Thompson Falls. He is assisted by Katrina Nygaard and Erika Lawyer. The players range from age 12 to 18 with three first-time players - Isa Bakker, Autumn Leckey and Aubrey Larsen, although Lawyer said Hailey Dimond and Candace Smith have not played in more than three years and this is the first year for Elisabeth Weedeman to play at this level, recently moving up from the U13 team.

"We have a lot of returning players, including the Wrobleski sisters, the Costner sisters, the Cook sisters, Ava Lawyer, Maddie Carter, Solveig Nygaard, Grace Noonan, Ocean Hyde, Ari Manuel, and Lexi Volk," said Lawyer, who added that many of them have played for more than 10 years.

At Tuesday's game, Claire Wrobleski drew first blood, followed by Solveig Nygaard and then Wrobleski again. The Clark Fork Alliance girls had five points in the first half alone. "Stevensville made the field really small, they really compressed the available space and made it hard for us to play our normal style of combination passing," said Lawyer, giving special credit to his wingers Costner, Hyde, Noonan, and Hailey Dimond.

He was also pleased with the goals of Jordan, Costner and Nygaard. "Both were exactly what we want, combination play from defense through the middle into the attack in space keeping the ball on the ground. It was really excellent play," Lawyer said.

"We've got a lot to work on and this game showed us some of our areas that need improvement including off ball movement, communication," said Lawyer, "and continuing in our passing and combination play."