CENTRALIA — Ocosta’s girls soccer season came to a disappointing end after a hard-fought battle against Adna on Tuesday night, as the Wildcats fell 1-0 in a District IV Class 2B semifinal at Tiger Stadium.

The Wildcats (9-7) could not find enough offense against the Pirates to advance to the finals of the

district tournament as they struggled to advance the ball past midfield in the first half and had a lot of

shots go wide in the second half.

Ocosta head coach Mike King said he is proud of the strides his young team made from the start of the

season.

“They improved a lot from last year and they improved from the first half of the season,” he said. “We

don’t have a lot of subs and depth and they went out and really worked hard. They’re competing with

some of the best teams in the state and we just came up a goal short tonight.”

Among their other accomplishments, the Wildcats handed Adna one of its two losses in Central League play.

Adna (14-2) appeared to be the more confident team when it came to passing and found some room to run

down the sidelines and toward the box in the early going. However, even when Pirate forwards got a little room to run, the Wildcats closed in on them quickly to break up the attack and send the ball out of bounds.

The Wildcats did not have the same success and ran into a wall of defenders when they were able to get

the ball near the box, which forced Ocosta to try its luck with long-range shots.

Ocosta had only forced one keeper save from the in the first half. But Adna’s offense offense did not capitalize on any chances in the first 40 minutes either as the two teams played to a scoreless draw at intermission.

With the Wildcats struggling to put together an offensive threat, King urged his forwards to be more aggressive in going after loose balls and he advised them to take advantage of any space they may find by

passing with more of a purpose.

The advice seemed to take hold in the opening minutes of the second half as the Wildcats forced a

couple of corner kick opportunities early on.

Adna survived the onslaught and scored on a corner kick of its own in the 51st minute. Payton Aselton

played the ball into the box hoping that a teammate would be on the end of the cross but a defensive

miscue caused the ball to sneak in on the near post where a defender should have been.

“We put a player back there that had never played the position,” King said. “She was off the post and there was just enough space in that spot to let the ball go through. The ball would have hit her and bounced away and we could have gone into overtime. That kind of unfortunate stuff happens.”

Ocosta’s best chance to tie the match came late in the second half when Teal Mitby ripped a shot from just

inside the box that went wide of the goal. The game and the Wildcat season would end shortly thereafter.