As the injuries continued to pile up for Grays Harbor, so did the goals for Pierce Community College in the Chokers’ 6-0 loss on Saturday at Stewart Field in Aberdeen.
Grays Harbor (0-13-1, 0-11 NWAC West) hung in there with the Raiders (3-9-4, 2-5-4) while playing with 11 players and no subs on the bench.
The Chokers came into the contest with only nine players, down from 10 in the last match, after fullback Jenna Cross sustained a hip injury that will sideline her for the last three games of the season.
Grays Harbor finished the game with eight players on the field as Destiny Mamon left the field in the second half with knee injury and required crutches after the match.
With only eight players currently available to play in the team’s next game on Tuesday, Chokers head coach Irvin Vicente said he will check with his players to see if they are physically able to play the rest of the scheduled games.
“Right now we’re just trying to see if we have enough numbers to complete the rest of the season. I’ll talk to the girls, see how it goes and go based off of that.”
Grays Harbor’s Kayla Delahanty (6) attempts a tackle on Pierce Community College’s Rebecca Jackson in the first half on Saturday at Stewart Field in Aberdeen. (Hasani Grayson | Grays Harbor News Group)
With one of their key defenders missing, Grays Harbor experienced its first major defensive miscue of the match when a failed clearing attempt allowed Skyler Simon to score her first goal of the match in the 29th minute.
The Chokers went into halftime down 1-0, but tired legs began to factor into the score. Simon scored again in the 49th minute after intercepting a pass and beating keeper Kristi Raffelson one-on-one.
Pierce expanded its lead to 3-0 when Angelique Bellot crossed the ball into Kahilu Hoopii and beat a diving Raffelson in the 55th minute.
Defensive breakdowns really began to show in the final 10 minutes of the contest where the Raiders added three goals after the 80th minute.
Vicente said there isn’t too mush positivity to pull from the first-half performance considering how things went in the second half.
“There’s 90 minutes. It doesn’t matter if we do good in the first 45 minutes if we can’t last 90, it’s going to catch up to us,” he said. “Today (the injuries) showed. We started off with nine (players) and ended with eight.”
If enough players can take the field, the Chokers will play their final home game of the season at 12:30 p.m. against Lower Columbia on Tuesday.
Vicente isn’t sure if the team will have to forfeit its third match of the season due to injuries but said his team is doing its best to stay positive under the circumstances.
“It gets frustrating and these girls know that our numbers are low but I like that they keep some type of positive mindset,” he said. “But that mindset can only go to certain extent because there is only so much we can do.”
