The La Center Wildcats girls soccer team finished last week 1-1, first with a 1-0 victory at home against the Fort Vancouver Trappers on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and then a 5-0 loss against Seton Catholic on Thursday, Oct. 3.
Last year, the La Center Wildcats finished fourth in state, best in school history, under the leadership of Horst Malunat. The Wildcats lost eight seniors following the season but have gained a returning coach — Matt Cone, who previously served as La Center’s head coach for seven years. Cone said last year’s absence was due to personal reasons.
Cone believes his 2024 squad, who is playing without standout Shaela Bradley, who now suits up for Rutgers University, is still finding its identity with four seniors on the roster.
“It’s tough coming from being here seven years and then kind of leaving for a year for personal stuff and then coming back in and trying to recreate your culture that you had set, and just getting the girls to kind of buy in again,” Cone said. “... I think they’re doing it. It’s going to take some time.”
Cone believes it will be a long road to recreate last year’s success after the loss of key players and top goal scorers, but he sees a path forward.
“What’s different with this team this year is we have to recreate the teamwork and we have to recreate ‘hey, it’s not one player doing it all for us.’ That was kind of what was put in place last year. So, I have to take that away. [We] really have to play some more team soccer and reconnect that way. I think that’s the biggest way to do it.”
In La Center’s 1-0 win over the Fort Vancouver Trappers on Oct. 1, goaltender Natalie Maunu made her return after rehabbing following a surgery that removed an extra bone in one of her feet.
“I was so stressed out for this game, like a lot, like I was thinking about it ever since I got cleared on Friday,” Maunu said. “I was thinking, Ok, how am I going to improve – how I’m going to get better at practice, how I’m going to take these practices seriously and just focus during the game and basically just lock in the whole time.”
Throughout practice, Maunu said she was becoming more consistent. Ahead of her first game, she said she watched a lot of film and paid attention to how the Trappers kick the ball.
“I was very prepared for this game, and I felt very confident coming into it,” she said.
After last week, the Wildcats sat third in the 1A Trico League with a 4-2 league record. They trail two top-10 teams in the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s RPI rankings. The 1A sixth overall King’s Way Christian Knights are 5-1 in the Trico League, while first overall Seton Catholic Cougars remained 6-0 in the league at the end of the week.
On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the Wildcats hosted the Knights, but results were unavailable as of press time. On Thursday, Oct. 10, the Wildcats host the Kalama Chinooks at 7 p.m.
