Whitefish girls have finishing touch to blow past CFalls

In its six wins so far this season, the Whitefish girls soccer team has proved to be a potent, goal-scoring threat.

And against rival Columbia Falls last Tuesday, the Bulldogs didn’t hold back in a 4-0 victory over the Kats. Going from struggling to capitalize on opportunities last season, to goals free flowing from various players no matter their position — Whitefish’s style of play is working on all fronts this year.

“I always believed as a coach, and I think they knew that we were getting close to being able to have these results against good teams,” Coach Roland Benedict said. “For the last three to four years this senior group, they understood that what we were trying to build is a style of soccer that you can’t pinpoint how we’re going to beat you.”

Whitefish’s system of play involves maintaining possession of the ball and controlling the flow of the game, but also having multiple players that are goal scoring threats. Such as against Columbia Falls, Whitefish had two goals come from its left-back defender Addriene Healy.

“The style that we have is accomplishing a lot; so i think validation for the girls is a big one,” Benedict added. “It's a massive confidence boost… it's like, hey we are as good as we believe we are.”

When the Bulldogs meet the Wildkats in Columbia Falls, it is always a game with tremendous emotion and meaning behind it — last week’s battle was another episode of the competitiveness between the teams.

“No matter what, that game is going to get circled on the schedule,” Benedict said. “Their program’s done a really good job of creating an awesome environment at their field. It's hard to play there; it's really hard to get momentum and feel confident.”

But he added that the most significant aspect of what his players have worked on getting to this point is winning the mental battle against themselves. And he says they did that.

Whitefish jumped on the scoreboard right away when Healy scored in the 3rd minute. Healy added another one and Sophie Olson scored as well in the first half to give the Bulldogs a commanding 3-0 lead heading into the final 40 minutes of play.

Whitefish forward Brooke Roberts beat Columbia Falls goalkeeper Zoey Byrd in the 53rd minute to cap the scoring.

The Bulldogs had 15 shots to the Wildkat’s seven. Whitefish keeper Norah Schmidt made three saves to keep the sheet clean and CFalls’ Byrd made 10 saves.

This week the Bulldogs will travel to Bigfork and Livingston. Last year Whitefish’s only tie of the season came from Bigfork, so Benedict expects the girls to come out fired up.

Whitefish faced Livingston in the quarterfinals of the playoffs last year so he equally expects that one to be another battle on the soccer pitch. Plus Livingston is having a good year and scoring against tough teams in their conference such as Billings Central and Laurel, making them a threat.

“A team like that is dangerous, they get a little belief that they can play with the bigger teams, they start creating that momentum..” Benedict said. “I’ve got that one circled.”

Whitefish 3 1 — 4

Columbia Falls 0 0 — 0

WF — Adrienne Healy 3:00

WF — Sophie Olson 18:00

WF — Healy 34:00

WF — Brooke Roberts 56:00

Shots — Whitefish 15, CF 7. Goalie saves — WF 3 (Norah Schmidt), CF 10 (Zoey Byrd).