South falls one goal short ,again

Once again, one was enough.

For the third-straight year, the South Kitsap girls soccer team was sent packing in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs by a single goal.

After back-to-back 1-0 losses the last two years, the Wolves were sent home 2-1 by Everett’s Jackson High Tuesday night at Everett Memorial Stadium.

SK ended a stellar season at 12-2-4 after winning the Narrows League Bridge Division title and taking second in the Narrows League Tournament.

But a pair of goals by Jackson’s Kristi Kingma in a five-minute span in the second half was too much for the Wolves to overcome. Jackson, at 12-2-4 and the second-place team out of the WestCo South Division, will advance to face Skyline, a 1-0 winner over Auburn-Riverside, in the quarterfinal round this weekend.

After a scoreless first half, Kingma got the Timberwolves on the board by lifting a well-placed shot from 20 yards out just over the out-stretched hands of South goalie C.J. Balstad. Five minutes later, Dani Oster found Kingma out in front and the sophomore forward made it 2-0.

That pair has combined to score 37 goals and 31 assists this year for Jackson. South allowed just five goals in its first 16 games of the year but gave up 11 in its final three contests.

Down 2-0, South fought back as junior forward Kelsey Penn scored on a nice crossing pass from senior captain Cassie Brown with just over 18 minutes left in the game and the Wolves then turned up the heat and got a couple of really nice looks in the closing minutes.

Senior Erin Carpenter just missed getting a foot on a shot with a half open goal in front of her while a bicycle kick by sophomore Kaitlin Myles was barely stopped by Jackson goalie Dee Wood.

"After the Bellarmine game (a 6-1 loss in the Narrows League championship game two weeks ago), we talked about if our season should end prematurely, if any game should not go in our favor, let's let it be like this,” South coach Eric Bergeson said. “Let's go down fighting. And we did."

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